


N.V.

by Shawn Michel de Montaigne (ShawnMichel)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), The Wizard of Oz & Related Fandoms
Genre: Coming of Age, Dark Magic, F/M, Falling In Love, Gen, Light Magic, envy - Freeform, vengeance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 09:03:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12229776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShawnMichel/pseuds/Shawn%20Michel%20de%20Montaigne
Summary: His name is Nathan Vach, and he's having terrifying dreams. Left alone after his father and brothers die in the Second Ogres war, and after his mother perishes from illness, he retreats into his family's big home far from anywhere. But the dreams continue to plague him, so he decides to visit a metaphysician in Munchkinland. There he learns startling news: that he has a gift for someone--a Soul Gift. It's a Gift that will be a great blessing to he or she destined to receive it. Walking home, he has no idea just how powerful that Gift is--or the individual who, unbeknownst to him, will soon try to claim it. Read on!





	N.V.

**Author's Note:**

> ABC's Once Upon a Time has had much promise which has gone largely unfulfilled over its six (now seven) seasons. The writing, especially in recent seasons, has become almost a caricature, the various plots left with so many holes that they look like winter highways into Detroit. Important characters have been pushed to the back or tranquilized and tagged and safely suburbanized. The Wicked Witch of the West, Zelena, played by the marvelous Rebecca Mader, has been one of them. This story seeks to address the tragic short shrift Zelena was given, and takes place shortly after she meets her "sister" witches from the south, east, and north.

  **This is a tale about a witch**. A wicked witch. Some say she came from the west. But I think she came from Heaven.

 

   This is the story of how we met, of how I fell in love with her. This is the story of my happy ending, and, I pray, hers.

 

~~*~~

 

It was that bridge. I never trusted it. Trolls occasionally lurked under it. I have lived long enough in these forests to know that those beasties migrate. They are like birds—big, hairy, bipedal birds that will rob you blind, then cook you alive. That is, after skinning you first. And laughing about it the whole time.

 

   I was there to help clean up the carnage after they attacked the Munchkin Commissioner Keljrad on that very bridge. He won, but not before most of his entourage died, and he too, later, from injuries. It was an impressively gory battle.

 

   I tried not to think of it. Still, it must have been quite a sight—tiny Munchkins and their tiny spears and swords and bow and arrows swarming over those monstrous trolls, and being thrown about like fleas. Or bite-sized beef pot pies, which was how, I was certain, the trolls thought of them.

 

   After that disaster, the Prefect of Munchkinland declared the bridge off limits to his people. He went to Oz to petition the Great Wizard’s support, but the Wizard, apparently, had no interest in lending the Prefect his voice, and off the Prefect went, angered once more with him.

 

   The Wizard of Oz. What a peckerwood.

 

   Anyway, back to that bridge.

 

   I thought of going another route, and in fact had ever since that battle. It was creepy before; now it was just evil.

 

   It was shadowed under the boughs of tremendous fir trees and made of black granite, and arched over a stream which tumbled under it in a minor gorge some forty feet deep. The trolls hid on the bridge’s bottom. They typically flattened themselves against the stone using their inhuman strength, and waited till you were right on top of them. Bastards.

 

~~*~~

 

I have the gift of Foresight. Or ... I was _supposed_ to. My mother was a Seer. A really good one, actually. But she didn’t see the illness growing in her belly, and one day she died. It crushed me. I grew up with my father and two older brothers, all of whom died after being conscripted to fight in the Second Ogres War in the Enchanted Forest, which was just a walk (or in this case, march) through a portal away. Mom wasn’t around to warn them, and I, supposedly also with the Gift, felt nothing but guilt ever since that I didn’t foresee their doom and steer them clear of it.

 

   Alone, I rattled around in this big house, miles from nowhere, and did my best to stay sane. I was not entirely certain I had been successful.

 

~~*~~

 

Forgive me. Where are my manners? My name is Nathan Vach (“Vok”). I’m human, but don’t hold that against me. I think I’m one of the nice ones, rare as we are.

 

   More on “successful.” You see, they weren’t Visions I was experiencing, but something else. They started a few months after my twentieth birthday. I was very confused and frightened by them. They felt totally alien—but also totally familiar. Increasingly panicked, I packed my bedroll and several days’ worth of food, enough to get to Lageb, the nearest village and first stop on my journey, made sure I had my passport, and off I hiked.

 

   My ultimate destination was Echeld, in the heart of Munchkinland, more than a week away. In my case it was closer to eleven days, since I was determined to avoid that damn bridge. A highly regarded metaphysician lived there, and I had plenty of gold to see him. Don’t envy me for that. That fortune came at a tragic cost—losing my entire family.

 

   Long story short ... Oh, hell, I’ll just give you the long version.

 

   I got to Echeld in the late afternoon of the tenth day, booked a bed at the inn (the only one there that accommodated humans), and tried to relax. My father had been highly respected by Munchkins, having supervised the construction of several major civic projects of theirs including this very inn (humans didn’t typically stoop—physically or in any other way—to help Munchkins). I visited Echeld once when I was ten, yet Mr. Dinys, the innkeeper, still recognized me and ordered the help to ready the best room, then insisted after I cleaned up and settled in to feed me at the Carrot Table, which was reserved for human luminaries passing through. I felt thoroughly humbled and red-faced sitting there while other patrons glanced at me and whispered animatedly.

 

   Mr. Dinys’ daughter served me. I was shocked—she was human! After she brought out my soup (which was delicious—beef with barley), I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

 

   “I’m sorry,” I blurted. “Forgive me ... but you’re human.”

 

   She snickered sweetly. “You noticed.”

 

   I laughed nervously. “I did.”

 

   I hoped she would provide an explanation, but she blushed and hurried off. With some disappointment (for she was quite pretty), I took a spoonful of soup. Delicious. Mr. Dinys appeared soon after and filled my mug with some of his famous ale. It was as good as rumored. After the fourth refill, I was lubricated enough to relax the reins on my mouth.

 

   “Your daughter is quite pretty.”

 

   He was walking away. He stopped and glanced over his shoulder.

 

   “Oh?”

 

   I held up my hand. “No offense. I was just commenting.”

 

   He turned to face me fully. “Her name is Brynn. She’s sixteen. We adopted her.” He gave a short bow. “I will convey your compliments.”

 

   “Oh, no,” I started. “Please don’t—”

 

   But Mr. Dinys had turned away and was speaking to a couple at a nearby table.

 

   I finished the cup, dropped more than enough coin on the table to pay for everything and tip the very pretty help, and left for my room.

 

   Once inside, I stripped off my clothes and fell into bed and was asleep instantly. Thankfully, I wasn’t visited by another one of those “visions.”

 

~~*~~

 

The metaphysician was named Dr. Dunk. We had to meet outside his home as his Munchkin one was too small to accommodate me. He told me to sit on a lacquered myrtle stump out back and brought me a cup of tea after shaking my hand. A human-sized cup, no less. I took a sip and waited for him to stop circling me and sizing me up, or whatever he was doing.

 

   “Put the cup down for a minute,” he ordered.

 

   I did. He began poking and prodding me with both middle fingers, then picked up an odd, twisty bit of black metal from a silver tray of dubious-looking instruments. He eyed it critically.

 

   “Damn thing’s not tuned right. Be right back.”

 

   He hurried into his home, twisty metal firmly in his grip, then came back out with another one. This one was twisty and black too, but had what looked like veins of gold running through it. It was also larger.

 

   He pressed the flat end of it into my shoulders, then, gently, into my sternum. He closed his eyes.

 

   “Hmm,” he said, his brow furrowing more.

 

   I waited.

 

   Eyes still closed, he said, “Stay silent, if you would, and extend your right hand.”

 

   I did. He opened his eyes and took the instrument and laid it across the back of my hand.

 

   He let it go. It remained, balanced.

 

   He snatched it back. “Your left hand, if you would, please. And please close your eyes.”

 

   I felt him balance the instrument on the back of my left hand. He snatched it away, grunted twice, told me I could open my eyes, then turned and sipped tea with some agitation. He watched me curiously, almost suspiciously.

 

   “Is there something wrong?” I demanded.

 

   He held up his hand. “Please remain silent. Do not speak unless I say so.”

 

   I nodded, flummoxed.

 

   “Please remove your shirt.”

 

   I blinked.

 

   “Now, if you would, Mr. Vach.”

 

   I was about to say, “Sure, sure,” but remembered that he wanted me to keep silent. I pulled my shirt off. He took it and laid it next to his cup (on a small circular table nearby), and turned to study me further.

 

   “Please close your eyes again.”

 

   I did.

 

   I heard him take his cup off the table and take a large, loud sip.

 

   He spat on my chest. The tea was still quite hot.

 

   I couldn’t help it. I blinked my eyes opened and flinched at the same time while saying something like, _“Yi!”_

 

   “No! No!” he yelled. “Stay perfectly still!”

 

   I stiffened obediently and quickly re-closed my eyes. I didn’t hear him move or even breathe for a long, awkward moment.

 

   “You may open your eyes now.”

 

   I did. Rivulets of cooling tea ran down my bare chest onto my pants. The slight breeze prompted a quick shiver.

 

   Doctor Dunk drew uncomfortably close and studied the rivulets as I gawked. He eventually took the twisty instrument and rubbed it against my wet chest, then pushed the flat end of it against the bridge of my nose. I couldn’t keep my mouth closed.

 

   “Holy crap!”

 

   For the instrument, like it had on the backs of my hands, was balanced perfectly—on nothing but air. It looked like a horn jutting out of my head.

 

   He snatched the instrument, smiled for the first time, and said lightly, “More tea? How about a blueberry scone? My wife just pulled them out of the oven!”

 

~~*~~

 

He returned with a damp towel, more tea, and the promised scone. I wiped myself off as he scribbled notes. He closed the book and sat facing me.

 

   He nodded as I bit uncertainly into the scone, which wasn’t small, as I expected it to be, but quite substantial. It was also delicious and warm, but not nearly enough to distract my attention from what just happened, or his face, which was studious and determined.

 

   “What does it feel like?” he asked.

 

   “What does _what_ feel like?” I demanded after swallowing.

 

   “You told me your mother was a Seer ...”

 

   I nodded.

 

   “A very imperfect Gift. As it would be, I suppose. As it must be.”

 

   “She didn’t foresee her own death,” I said glumly.

 

   “Or perhaps she did and didn’t tell you.”

 

   I stared.

 

   He shrugged. “You were a child. What mother would share such news with her child?”

 

   I hadn’t thought of that. It was a very depressing consideration, so I pushed it out of my mind.

 

   “You aren’t strictly a Seer, Mr. Vach. The tests strongly suggest you are something related, but also quite a bit rarer. You are what metaphysicians call a Vision Bearer.”

 

   I had never heard the term before. Naturally, since it apparently described me, I waited with bated breath.

 

   “I could give you the clinical definition,” said the good doctor, “but I think I’ll err on the side of loose verbiage in order to help you understand. Would that be acceptable?”

 

   “Sure. Sure.”

 

   “A Vision Bearer bears a vision that isn’t his or her own.”

 

   “I’m confused. I have someone _else’s_ visions?”

 

   “Strictly speaking, they aren’t visions. Well,” he held up a hand, “not always, perhaps not even most of the time. Visions or premonitions are a dime a dozen, really. They occur much more often than people realize. They really aren’t that remarkable. Nor are they accurate. Not usually. Your mother was probably more gifted than the typical Seer, meaning she had greater clarity than most.”

 

   I waited. The scone was so tasty that I quickly finished it. He glanced at the empty plate and without commenting picked it up, disappeared inside, and returned a few moments later with a fresh one. I bit into it as he collected his thoughts.

 

   “Vision Bearers are ... well, think of them more as Soul Givers. Your spirit ‘houses,’ if you will, an essential ‘component’ of spirit meant to go to someone else, someone you’ll meet at an undetermined future time. It has germinated inside you, has grown inside you, and is waiting for the moment to flower. But it isn’t yours—again, strictly speaking. It’s meant for someone else, someone you may not have met yet but will. Follow?”

 

   “A bit of someone else’s ... _soul_ ... somehow got mixed up with mine?” I asked, dumbfounded.

 

   He impatiently shook his head. “It’s a bit of _your_ soul that _you_ ‘grew’ that ultimately belongs to someone else. The recipient’s spirit didn’t lose a piece of itself and you somehow picked it up, no. _You_ grew a bit of spirit inside your own _meant_ for that person. You _bear_ it for them until such time that they need it. When they do, you will give it to them. The ‘growth’ of that flower, if you will, bears the ‘soil’ and ‘nutrients’ of your spirit, so what you give them is truly a gift, is unique, and will serve them. It’s a Seeing ability since it foretells of future events. Like I said, it’s quite rare. But I am fairly certain you possess it.”

 

   I needed time to collect my thoughts. He gave the moment to me, waiting, arms crossed, as I nibbled absentmindedly on the scone.

 

   I swallowed and wiped my mouth with the towel. “I haven’t met this person yet?”

 

   Dr. Dunk shrugged. “Don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. In any case, what brought you to me was the Vision or, more accurately, Gift, which means you haven’t given it to the individual. If you had, you’d know it. The Visions, if they were continuing to that point, would cease as well.”

 

   “How can I know it’s a gift?” I demanded. “I mean, it sure doesn’t feel like one. What if it’s a curse? What if it harms the recipient? How will I know when I ‘give’ it to them? What will it feel like?”

 

   “One question at a time,” he reproached. “Thank you.”

 

   “Yeah. Sure. Sorry,” I mumbled.

 

   “Vision Bearers have never, as far as recorded history is concerned, given curses. Their gifts are always profound blessings. Admittedly, your kind is very rare, and so records are far from complete or comprehensive. I must admit that I can’t be sure that what you’ve got growing inside your spirit is benign. It may not be. As for your last two questions, I have no answers for you.”

 

   Struggling to understand, I nodded.

 

   “As far as giving them the Gift, there are probably an infinite number of ways such an exchange can occur. It can be as simple as a kiss or a hug. Or it can be very complex and involve many other individuals. You can relax about it in any case, since you won’t have any say in the giving process aside from your conscious comings and goings through your life. You just be you, and the Gift will, at the appropriate time, give itself.”

 

   I tried absorbing the information, hoping I remembered it when I got home.

 

   “At the risk of being too personal,” he asked, “would you share what you are seeing? I assume you have these visions in the early morning, typically, as you emerge from deep sleep?”

 

   “Wow ... yes. That’s right. How did you know?”

 

   “I’m a trained metaphysician, my boy.”

 

   “Yes, of course.”

 

   I collected my thoughts. The scone was gone. I put the plate on the table and turned back around.

 

   “I see ...” I began “... I see ... it always starts with my initials.”

 

   “N.V.?”

 

   “Yes.”

 

   “Go on ...”

 

   “I see ... no, I _feel_ ... great bitterness. Anger. Jealousy. A desire for revenge. I mean, a burning, smoldering _craving_ for it. And then ... _green_. A bright flash of green lightning. It’s sudden and overwhelming and it startles me, and I wake up right after that. I’m always sweating, my heart jumping in my chest like a jack rabbit. It’s ... it’s so _powerful_. When it happens, I spend the rest of the day furious, angry, jealous of nothing at all, it seems. It’s hard to understand, and very scary.”

 

   Dr. Dunk nodded contemplatively and rubbed his chin.

 

   “The last time it happened, I saw a face. A woman’s face. Beautiful. She had black hair and wore ... I don’t know. She had her hair up and what looked like ... like a tiara in it. She was laughing. But not with joy. With great malice.”

 

   I had to calm myself. Just talking about it got my heart racing again. “Is she ... is she the one I’m to give my Soul Gift to?” Inwardly, I prayed (prayed!) she wasn’t.

 

   Dr. Dunk held up. “I’m going to venture a guess and say no, she isn’t.”

 

   “Why?”

 

   “You originally described great bitterness, anger, and jealousy. Then you mentioned revenge. But you didn’t mention malice until later. That’s an entirely different thing. My guess is that the impending recipient of your Soul Gift is bitter, angry, and jealous _towards_ the person with the face you saw. If I may venture another guess, I think I may have a name to match the face based on your description. You said she wore a tiara. Did it look genuine?”

 

   “Yeah. Very real. Actual diamonds and rubies and emeralds. Like only royalty could possess it. So ... who do you think it is?”

 

   “I’ll be right back,” said the doctor, who stood and hurried inside his home.

 

   He was gone a long time—maybe twenty minutes or more. When he came back, he was carrying what appeared to be an ornate wood carving. He handed it to me.

 

   “Is this she?” he asked, sitting once more.

 

   I stared, my jaw dropping. _It was!_

 

   My expression adequately conveyed my answer.

 

   “This is a carving a general’s son who served in the Third Ogre’s War made,” he explained. “He was there when Rumpelstiltskin destroyed them and brought an end to the conflict. On his travels through Misthaven—the Enchanted Forest, as it is commonly known—he encountered this woman. He survived the War but damn near didn’t survive her. Her name is Regina. But most call her the Evil Queen.”

 

~~*~~

 

I’d heard of her. _Everyone_ had heard of her. Even people like me who didn’t even live in her universe!

 

   She was the epitome of evil. She reveled in it. She wiped out whole villages—for sport. Her Black Knights were cruel and brutal. Like her, they were without mercy or compassion.

 

   Dr. Dunk reiterated that my Soul Gift wasn’t _likely_ intended for the Evil Queen, but for someone who felt very strongly about her. That person I was destined to meet, apparently.

 

   I thanked him, put my shirt back on, paid him, exchanged a few pleasantries with his wife, and left.

 

   It seemed entirely possible that I would like this mystery person. He or she _despised_ the Evil Queen. Didn’t that mean that he or she had at least a modicum of decency and sanity?

 

   I wished I knew which it was—a he or a she. I decided that it would be a she, and that I would be her steadfast knight should she need it. I imagined myself as her defender as she stood up to and vanquished the Evil Queen using my Soul Gift, and then returned to me and showered me with deep, soulful kisses in gratitude.

 

   I went back to the inn. Brynn was waiting behind the counter. I approached, and she smiled.

 

   “I’d like to pay for one more night,” I said.

 

   “Certainly,” she replied, taking my coins. “I’ll send up fresh towels and freshen up the basin for you.”

 

   Had her father “conveyed,” as he stiffly put it, my compliments on her beauty? I couldn’t tell.

 

   “Thanks,” I said, and made for the stairs.

 

   _What if the Soul Gift goes to her?_ I wondered, then wondered if it were possible for someone with such a bright disposition to be able to hide such intense anger and envy. If so— _How would I give the Gift to her? Or ... perhaps I just did!_

 

   I got to my room, opened the door, and sat heavily at the edge of my bed. I had a _lot_ to think about.

 

~~*~~

 

I ate dinner a few hours later, treated once again at the Carrot Table. The entree was chicken with potatoes, green beans, and a big, chilled bottle of port with a flaky sweet dessert—“polem.” Brynn, not her father, served me. She looked amazing. She hurried here and there seemingly boundless with energy.

 

   She had a smile for everyone. I wasn’t special in that regard, and that disappointed me. I was hoping it was brighter for me, but as far as I could tell, it wasn’t. I was just another customer.

 

   I resolved not to get as drunk as I had the first night we met, dropped lots of coin on the table to pay for the meal and tip her, and walked back upstairs to my room without making a single attempt to chat up my pretty waitress.

 

   I suppose I just wasn’t in the mood. I was a Vision Bearer—a Soul Giver. I had a “flower” inside me that belonged to another who had a burning hatred for the Evil Queen. I was meant to give it to her—Brynn, maybe? Or ... her father? It was a _gift_ , Dr. Dunk assured me, _not_ a curse. At least, that’s what he assumed. Soul Givers, evidently, were very rare.

 

~~*~~

 

I woke at first light, bathed, and packed my belongings for the trip home. Mr. Dinys stopped me at the door.

 

   “Here,” he mumbled, thrusting a folded bit of parchment into my palm. “Brynn asked me to give this to you. She didn’t have the courage to last night.”

 

   I glanced down at it.

 

   “It’s our address. She wants you to write to her. I told her what you thought about her. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but ...” he eyed me critically “... you seem to have a decent head on your shoulders, so ... ah, what the hell, right?”

 

   I was somewhat taken aback, but at least had the presence of mind to thank him and ask that he tell Brynn that I’d write soon, and that perhaps I’d be back this way sooner than later. He grunted, reached up and gave my shoulder a hard slap, and walked away.

 

   I was halfway out of town when I spied the carriage service. They were typically expensive as hell, but I was in a great mood and so threw caution to the wind and inquired once I got inside the little wooden building. The Munchkin who ran the place grunted, “I can take you to the border, but no farther. Sixty gold.”

 

   “Deal,” I said, and paid him. I waited while he got the horse and carriage ready—a good half-hour—then climbed in.

 

   We were off.

 

~~*~~

 

A little voice in my head told me I might regret my decision when he got off the King’s Highway and made for the Yellow Brick Road.

 

   The Yellow Brick Road. Ugh.

 

   It wasn’t gold, as many legends claimed. (Those who thought it was gold were, unsurprisingly, from other Realms.) The stones weren’t painted, either. In fact, the yellow coloring was enchanted dragon piss.

 

   That’s right. Dragon piss.

 

   My father gave me the history. The Wicked Witch of the East’s great-to-the-fifth grandfather, or some similar relation a very long time ago, somehow got a dragon to piss on the road in order to locate a swindler who had stolen from him. If the swindler ever set foot on the road, which before that was simple whitewashed cobblestones, the piss that colored the brick would color him, thereby making him easy to find.

 

   The dragon set off and did its thing. It didn’t have to piss and piss and piss, but only relieve its bladder occasionally as it flew. The piss had been enchanted and so colored the road over long swaths when it struck, the magic spreading it as though there were thousands of gallons of it.

 

   The swindler shortly after stepped on the road and was instantly colored a pissy golden yellow, and was soon caught and punished.

 

   The golden color remained. When Oz’s citizens—humans, Munchkins, and everything in-between—found out what it signified, efforts were made to punish the wizard, who fled, and then to repaint the road, which back then was named something utterly nondescript like “Cross Route 14B.”

 

   Funnily enough, a movement emerged devoted to preserve the piss coloring. Petitions were circulated. Activists went door-to-door urging citizens to write the king, begging him to keep the road yellow.

 

   It worked. The cursed piss, the king decreed, would not be painted over. Another generation and more petitions, and Cross Route 14B was renamed “The Yellow Brick Road.”

 

   It became over time the main highway into the Emerald City. It became fashionable to live alongside it. New villages sprang up within two generations—almost overnight in these parts. Trade centered along it. The king himself, and then his daughter, who would become queen, and her sons and their kids took the Yellow Brick Road, when possible and sensible, instead of others they had traditionally taken. It must have been quite a sight to see a grand procession with a golden carriage coming up on the Yellow Brick Road. The Dragon Piss Road, as we locals called it.

 

   But then the Wizard showed up, and it all went to crap.

 

   These days the Dragon Piss Road was a dodgy route to take anywhere. The villages along it became overrun with bandits and cutthroats, dark and seedy places that one ventured into only when it became absolutely necessary.

 

   The citizenry petitioned the Wizard to clean it up, who summarily dismissed them. He never traveled that road, he sniffed, so why should he care?

 

   The driver got on the Piss Road an hour later. I probably should have jumped off way before then, but indecision and tiredness (I did _not_ want to walk any farther than necessary if I could help it) kept me sitting and stewing in the back.

 

   He got to the border a couple of hours later. One of those seedy villages was located there—Qualeveres. At one time it was probably the nicest hamlet on the thoroughfare. Now it looked like the forest had taken a big dump and stuck fading signs on the fetid and crumbling piles to identify them. I grabbed my belongings, hopped out of the carriage, thanked the driver, and continued on my way. I pulled my hood up and tightened my belt over the coat, instead of hiding it beneath, so that I could easily access my dagger and hunting knife. A light drizzle had begun falling; it was late afternoon and I needed to make camp somewhere soon so that I didn’t get soaked.

 

   Here was the problem. To avoid that damn troll bridge—to walk all the way to Lageb—would add more than half a week to my journey.

 

   The drizzle had become more insistent, bordering on rain. I found a decent triangle of felled trees, ones many others had used for shelter judging by the fire pits and trash everywhere, and got set up. If needed, I could stay here another couple of days. Qualeveres was two hours behind me. I could get food there and get out before, hopefully, anybody began plotting against me.

 

   I had stocked up on some good, fresh beef jerky back at the inn, a couple of jars of peaches, and lighter-starter for a campfire, which I built in a previously dug pit. From under the overhang of my tent I watched the night descend quietly upon the forest. Soon I could see only the fire, could hear only raindrops as they fell from the surrounding trees to the leaf- and needle-covered ground. It was how I managed finally to nod off.

 

~~*~~

 

The drizzle passed sometime in the night. I woke to bright sunshine and a cool, dry breeze. I cleaned up, packed up, and continued the walk home. With a little luck I could make it to the troll bridge before tomorrow’s sunset.

 

   To hell with it, I thought. I got on myself: I’d built that bridge up to be this awful thing, when it probably was no more or less dangerous than any other bridge out in the boonies. I _lived_ in the boonies, and I never had problems!

 

   Okay, yes, there had been trolls there before, and yes, they had killed a lot of Munchkins, and yes, there had been robberies and muggings there too, and yes, men had died, and yes, some of them had been eaten. Yes. That was all true.

 

   But that was true of _many_ bridges in this realm. You hide in the shadows, your scumsucking, thieving self, and you send men or others of your kind to hide on the other side of the bridge in their own scumsucking shadows. When the mark gets to the middle, you cut him or her off on both sides, then have your fun. It was Basic Highway Banditry 101, and hardly centered on my bridge. I’d crossed probably three dozen bridges on my way to see Dr. Dunk; and the carriage back crossed at least that many. In every case, we were never molested or threatened.

 

   As for trolls, they were bloody everywhere, not just waiting on the undersides of bridges. Hell, setting up my camp last night was a concerted exercise in preparing for possible trolls!

 

   Ogres were simply larger trolls, in my estimation. Ogres had a sense of loyalty and territorial pride, which made them inarguably more dangerous, since they had banded together on three occasions and ran total roughshod over Misthaven. Trolls didn’t seem capable of organizing themselves into an army.

 

   There were no ogres in this realm, thank God. Trolls were bad enough.

 

~~*~~

 

I spied the Emerald City around midday.

 

   I flipped it off multiple times while it was in view. There it was to the north, a good three days’ journey away, the spires skying high, high into the sky, shrouded with distance and haze. I was at the intersection of the very road that would take me to the troll bridge, one fairly high in elevation at this point, else the Emerald City wouldn’t have been visible at all.

 

   I flipped it off one more time and continued walking. The road descended into heavy forest and the city disappeared.

 

   The Emerald City had during my life become the exclusive home to the wealthy, privileged, and politically connected. Just getting past the gates was an ordeal. You didn’t just need a passport to get in, but also proof of sufficient income.

 

   Last year the Wizard ordered a ban on all Munchkins, claiming they were all terrorists.

 

   What a peckerwood.

 

~~*~~

 

I got to the dreaded bridge as the sun dropped beneath the forest line of the next day. I was right on time. My feet and back ached. I’d been walking since before dawn and had probably covered twenty miles. I was exhausted and home was just another three and a half miles away. I’d be able to make it in an hour if I really pushed it. It would be dusk, but not night.

 

   Those were my excuses for why I didn’t stop and look around first. Instead, doggedly and foolishly, I walked on it and kept going, mentally jumping on my own back again for believing that it was any more dangerous than any other.

 

   I looked up at the halfway point.

 

   Three huge, mangy, hairy trolls were waiting on the other side.

 

   I wheeled about.

 

   A huge, gray fist came crashing down on my head, and I blacked out.

 

~~*~~

 

I remember an explosion of pain in my skull, a thrilling moment of falling, and then ... wetness. Agony in my back, left arm, right leg.

 

   But also—and just like my dreams—a brilliant green flash of lightning. It accompanied a shriek of spine-chilling rage.

 

   It became very quiet.

 

   A compelling sense of release filled me, like my soul was about to leave my body. And then I think it did.

 

   I floated like a balloon just above myself. I could see myself lying in the stream below the bridge. I was a broken, twisted heap. My backpack, bedroll, and shirt were missing, my pants torn. I was covered in blood.

 

   It was over for me, and I knew it. But I didn’t feel fear or loss; rather the sense that a new home waited for me somewhere ... beyond. I glanced up, because I was sure that was where it was, and besides, that’s where balloons go when released, right? Up?

 

   The bridge I had the good sense to avoid when I left but not when I returned arched blackly over a settling pink-white sky. Towering fir trees on both sides of it watched me die with indifference. Smoke rose from it, as though someone had built a campfire on it.

 

   I gazed back down at myself. I could smell the air and feel a slight chill on my skin, but not the frigid water as it rushed over my broken form. It was like the nerves of my tethered soul were feeling, not those in my body. It was the oddest sensation.

 

   All I had to do was let go. Let go and float into the sky, and be free forever. I turned back to face the bridge. As I voiced my final mortal wish, there she was.

 

   She was beautiful. Astonishingly so. Flaming red hair and angry sapphire eyes. She wore the clothes and cloak of an aristocratic huntress.

 

   She too was injured. Her cloak was torn and burned, and the hand she brought over my face was covered in blood. She waved it, and I, the balloon, began to deflate.

 

   That’s precisely how it felt—like a deflating balloon. As I did I descended back down into that broken, unwanted body. I cried for her to stop.

 

   “No! No! Let me go! I don’t want to go back! I’ll suffer! Stop! Please!”

 

   But I deflated more, and then dropped, limp, into myself. When I did I felt the frigid cold rushing over me, and my injuries, the unendurable pain of them. I gagged and coughed. The sound of gurgling water was immediate and deafening. I was blind, like my eyes were closed.

 

   They were. I opened them. The huntress’ face was just over mine.

 

   I tried to speak, but coughed up blood instead.

 

   “Easy. Easy, now,” she said. Her voice, like the rest of her, was angelic. She cupped the back of my head and pulled it out of the water. “I can help you, but not here. You need to feel safe, and you don’t. I can feel it. So I need you to think very hard—stay with me now! Don’t close your eyes! Come on and stay with me and listen! I need you to think very hard about where you feel safe. Do it now, okay? Come on, do it!”

 

   I did as she asked even as I coughed up more blood. I thought of home. My bed.

 

   She waved her hand over my chest. “Yes,” she smiled. “There it is. Now this will hurt, but it will save your life. Here we go ...”

 

   Her hand stopped waving and plunged into my chest.

 

   It felt just like it should: an indescribable moment of agony easily as awful as falling forty feet off a bridge into a rocky stream after being mugged and beaten by trolls. I bellowed, but then she yanked and in her fist was a glowing ... heart. _My_ heart!

 

   But her fist wasn’t bloody (at least not with my blood), and neither was my heart! She stared at it almost dispassionately. “My, my. You’ve been a very good and true sort, haven’t you? This little beauty is almost perfect.”

 

   She gazed mischievously down at me and winked. “Almost.”

 

   I stared up in horror and fear, but couldn’t speak. Pain literally made me mute. A pleasurable, tingling sensation remained in my chest, contradictory and compelling. It urged me to do anything my rescuer asked of me.

 

   She returned her attention to my glowing heart. ( _Was_ that my heart? Or was it some very strange magical representation _of_ my heart?)

 

   “Yes,” she said, staring at it. “There’s your bedroom. I can take you there right now.”

 

   She smiled compassionately. “Ready? Here we go ...”

 

   She flourished her free hand and suddenly I was rising, rising, rising ... just like I wanted to as a balloon or whatever it was that I had been for that sadly brief moment.

 

   I rocketed up past the bridge, and I could see what was making all the smoke that rose from it.

 

   Trolls were piled on each other at its center. Or, I should say, what was _left_ of the trolls was at its center—a single big pile of broken limbs, random torsos, hanging fur, and gaping mouths. The pile smoked. I passed through it, and smelled burning hair.

 

   Something hadn’t just battled the trolls and won. Something—some _one_ —had wiped them out with the ease of a god and the rage of a demon.

 

   I rose higher. The sweet nothingness of unconsciousness overtook me just as I wished to go straight to Heaven and leave this dirty, lonesome existence behind.

 

~~*~~

 

I woke ... in ... my bed! My bed!

 

   I tried coming up to my elbows, but pain flashed in my ribs and lower back, and I fell back. It hurt so much that a shriek escaped my lips.

 

   _“Owwwwww,”_ I hissed between clenched teeth and crushed, streaming eyes.

 

   The sound of movement—from downstairs.

 

   Someone was in the house? Was it the same person who saved me?

 

   For a moment I couldn’t recall who that was. It was all behind an increasingly impenetrable wall of shock and trauma that my body and mind were desperately trying to escape from.

 

   But then I remembered. Amazing blue eyes. Red hair like the dying coals of a god’s campfire. Full lips. Wicked smile. And that voice ...

 

   She peeked around my bedroom door. “I thought I heard something. You’re awake. Good!”

 

   She strode in. She didn’t walk. She didn’t march. She _strode_. Like she owned the place. Like she owned _me_.

 

   She sat at the edge of the bed and gave me one of those heart-melting smiles. “How are you feeling, Nathan?”

 

   I gawked. I didn’t know what to say, so chose to be honest. “Pain. Everywhere.”

 

   “As well you should!” she scolded softly. “You were on death’s doorstep when I got to you!”

 

   “How...?” I croaked. “How ... do you know ... my name?”

 

   She stroked my face with her fingers and laughed lightly. “Because you told me, silly! I asked, and you told me. Your name is Nathan Vach. You’ve been doing a lot of talking and gibbering. I’ve been listening.”

 

   “Did I ... did I tell you where ... I live?”

 

   “Well, of course you did!” she answered. “We’re here, aren’t we? How would I know otherwise? Though to be honest ...”

 

   She reached into her pocket and pulled out ...

 

   ... a heart?

 

   I gaped. It came back to me.

 

   _My_ heart! She had pulled it out of my chest as I lay broken in the gorge!

 

   I stared at it.

 

   She examined it with a devilish smile. “I’m glad I extracted this beauty when I did. If I hadn’t, you would be rotting in that icy creek!”

 

   The smile dissolved as she glanced at me. “There is a big problem, however, Nathan.”

 

   “Wh-What?” I gasped. I knew that even if my ribs weren’t broken, they’d ache with the sight of her. She was that beautiful.

 

   “If I put this back in your chest, you will die. I saved you at the Cruxx. Your soul was almost free of your body. When that happens a new heart like this one forms. It’s the one you take to the Beyond. It’s probably somewhere near that awful bridge. If I put this heart back in your chest, it will follow the wishes of the new heart—the Cruxx—which is still much stronger, and you will die. You need to be _much_ healthier before I put this back. When you are better—and not just this fine body of yours—we need to find the Cruxx and merge it with this one. When that happens, the earthbound one will assert authority over it and you will stay alive. It is why I can’t heal you with a big dose of magic. I’ve given you just enough to keep you alive, but too much too quickly would only empower the Cruxx, and it will kill your physical body so that it can leave the earth. Do you follow?”

 

   I didn’t. Not completely, anyway. Pain made comprehension difficult. Still, I nodded.

 

   “Y-You’re magic?”

 

   She brought her finger to my lips and pursed her own, then winked.

 

   “Sleep, Nathan.” She held up my heart. “I’ll keep this in safekeeping while you get better.”

 

   I wasn’t going to argue. I closed my eyes, the sensation of her finger on my lips lingering, and was out almost immediately.

 

~~*~~

 

Dead, smoking trolls. I kept dreaming of them. Powerful trolls ripped apart like they were so much furry kindling.

 

   What possessed the kind of power necessary to do such a thing? A single adult troll was capable of taking on ten full-grown men! Their long, wiry arms and hairy bodies hid heinously powerful muscles. They could move like lightning too, at least for short distances.

 

   But the ones that had attacked me met something that went through them like a hot knife through butter. They hadn’t been destroyed, no. They had been _eviscerated_. They had been blown apart, then contemptuously stacked like so much firewood and set afire. Just like that. Like it was nothing.

 

   Smoking trolls. Flaming hair. My heart in her hands. That impish smile. The touch of her finger on my lips. Rising up to Heaven.

 

~~*~~

 

I woke sometime later—hours? days? _weeks?_ —with a strange compulsion to sit up.

 

   It was strange because I was certain it didn’t come from me at all, but like it had been placed there by an outside agency.

 

   There it was again:

 

   _Sit up_. _Go on, do it!_

 

   I couldn’t resist it. I sat up.

 

   It hurt like hell, and I clenched my teeth as my torso came vertical. It felt like hot needles had replaced my ribs and lower back, especially my right hip. Tears streaked down my cheeks.

 

   _“Son of a bitch!”_ I hissed as I fought for breath.

 

   _Try standing_ , came a new compulsion. _Go on, give it a go!_

 

   I stood, feeling like I was under remote control. The movement hurt as badly as sitting up did. Tears squeezed out of my crushed eyes, and cursewords snarled forth from my larynx through gritted teeth. Both my knees felt ready to give, and my left ankle shrieked in protest. I felt lightheaded and woozy.

 

   _Why am I doing this?_ I thought, gazing with outraged wonder down at my own person, which was only partially clothed. I was (somehow) wearing my pajama bottoms, but nothing else.

 

   My chest was a grotesque black-and-blue lump of flesh, with gouges of bloody skin beneath bandages and gauze. Blood leaked from beneath the left bit of gauze located just next to my elbow. I felt it trickle down my torso.

 

   _Do you need to use the bathroom?_

 

   “No,” I answered. _(To myself?)_

 

   I blinked, utterly dumbfounded and now close to fainting.

 

   _All right, then. Back into bed with you. Go on! I’ll change your dressings shortly._

 

   I couldn’t resist it. It felt like it originated at the base of my skull, but quickly warmed its way through my brain to the front. I noticed that by the time it got there, I was already doing what it wanted. I tried sitting as delicately as I could. It did nothing for the pain. Neither did easing myself back onto my back. _“Owww ... owwwww!”_ I hissed. _“Damnit, damnit, damnit...!”_

 

   _Rest easy, Nathan,_ came the compulsion. _Rest and recover. Rest, and soon that exquisite body of yours will be ready for a new adventure ..._

 

   _“Wh ... What?”_ I managed to get out just before the urge to sleep overcame me and I fell unconscious once again.

 

~~*~~

 

That’s how it went for ... well, I didn’t know how long, truth be told. I guessed it was at least a month. I’d wake, feel a compulsion to sit up, then stand, then to lie back down and go back to sleep. Over time an additional compulsion to walk overcame me, and I did, slowly, haltingly, crying out in pain with each tortured step.

 

   I never had to go to the bathroom. I never got hungry or thirsty. Sleeping all day didn’t weaken me further. I couldn’t figure out why.

 

   The aristocratic huntress eventually began showing up with food. She’d spoon-feed it to me as I sat up. She studied me at times with a look that was almost terrifying, like I was a piece of meat. She was no longer dressed like she was going out hunting, but in comfortable outfits, dresses mainly, that could probably feed a village for a month. All of them, like their owner, were gorgeous.

 

   After many days of this, I, sitting up, swallowed a spoonful of stew she’d fed me, and stared into those frightening but mesmerizing eyes.

 

   “I ... don’t even know your name.”

 

   “Zelena,” she answered immediately.

 

   I took another spoonful. It was delicious.

 

   “Why ... why ... I mean, I’m grateful of course, Zelena ... but why...?”

 

   “Why am I helping you when we’re total strangers?”

 

   I nodded.

 

    She smiled. “Don’t know, really. Something tells me that you could be ... useful to me. Besides,” she went on, “we’re not really strangers. I’ve learned a great deal about you ever since ... well, that unfortunate encounter with the trolls. You’ve done a lot of talking in your delirium. I’ve listened.”

 

   It was only then that my visit with Dr. Dunk hit me with full force.

 

   I was a Soul Giver, and _she_ was the recipient of the “gift” or whatever I had inside my soul that was ready to be gifted to her, or transferred, or whatever needed to happen! She _had_ to be!

 

   Her blue eyes narrowed. “What? What is it?”

 

   “I think I ...”

 

   How do you explain such a weird thing to a stranger? (At least to _me_ she was!)

 

   “You think what?”

 

   “I think ... I have ... something ... for ... you.”

 

   “Oh? For me? How can that be? I just told you my name!”

 

   She presented another spoonful of stew, and I took it, chewed, and swallowed.

 

   I’m certain I sounded like a gibbering fool, or still delirious, as I explained my visit to Dr. Dunk and his tests, and then what he told me that I was—a “Vision Bearer.” Zelena stared at me more and more intently as I spoke. Apparently I hadn’t revealed any of it in my gibbering misery. It wasn’t until I detailed the visions I’d been having and then spoke _that_ name ...

 

   “It’s the Evil Queen,” I said, shaking my head and shuddering ...

 

   ... that her face, for the first time, registered something else entirely. Whatever it was, it froze my blood.

 

   But then it was gone, as though she had subsumed it under a tremendous act of will. I noticed a small bead of sweat at her hairline.

 

   The smile she gave was forced. “The Evil Queen, you say?”

 

   “Yes.”

 

   She’d completely forgotten about feeding me. I was still hungry. “Would you mind?” I asked, reaching for the bowl and spoon.

 

   She glanced down at them as though shocked that they were there. “Oh. Right. Of course.”

 

   I took the bowl and spoon and began feeding myself. She stared emptily past my shoulder.

 

   I wanted to help her, as she had been helping me, so—

 

   “You saved my life,” I offered. “I would like to repay you. Perhaps with this knowledge I can be of service to you somehow. Maybe that’s how this is supposed to work—?”

 

   She filled her vacant gaze by looking at me.

 

   “How may I help you, Zelena?”

 

   It was very strange, but at that moment I didn’t feel like the injured cripple. She did.

 

   She studied me. “You are ... an odd sort, aren’t you?” She chuckled sadly. “You have no idea how little I have heard that in my life—that someone wants to help.”

 

   “I’m yours, Zelena. Command me, and I shall do as you wish.”

 

   It wasn’t a joke. Her beauty was entrancing. Even though I was in great pain, I still wanted to taste those lips ...

 

   She laughed lightly, then stood and left. I heard her go downstairs and begin rummaging around.

 

   I finished the stew and set the bowl on the nightstand behind me.

 

   She appeared at the door with something red and glowing in her hand. My heart!

 

   She sat once more by my side and held it up between us.

 

   “This is the heart of your heart,” she informed me. “It’s magical. Everyone possesses one. If you’re particularly skilled in magic, you can extract them. If you crush them—”

 

   She gave it a slight squeeze, and I could feel the actual, physical one in my chest seize. It hurt like hell, and I gasped and clutched myself, unable to breathe.

 

   She grinned coldly. “—you can kill the person you took it from.”

 

   She glanced my lips with her finger. “I won’t do that to you, my dear Nathan, have no fear.”

 

   The heart in my chest pounded with it—with fear. But also barely manageable lust. I couldn’t tell which was stronger. I wanted to run and hide from her. I also wanted to throw her down on this bed and have my way with her. There was an odd emptiness surrounding both, however, one that I only became aware of that moment. It was like I couldn’t feel at all _beyond_ that fear and lust, as if that was all life was.

 

   “When ... can I have it back?” I asked, coming back to the present and feeling a new fear—for that emptiness.

 

   For a moment I thought she might say “Never!” and was hoping that’s what I’d hear. Equally powerful was the hope that she’d give it back to me immediately.

 

   “Not until we find the Cruxx, I’m afraid,” she said. “Not until you are _much_ healthier, body _and_ soul. And then,” she warned, “we must be very careful. I need to merge this one with the Cruxx once we find it. But ...”

 

   She shook her head.

 

   “But what?” I demanded.

 

   She studied me.

 

   “I have studied this heart for days now. It is almost totally pure. But I sense in it a growing ... let’s call it ennui.”

 

   “Ennui?”

 

   “It’s not _quite_ the word I’m looking for. But it’ll do. You are increasingly disinterested in life, Nathan. I think I know why.”

 

   She stood and repocketed my heart, then walked slowly around my room, studying my possessions, running a finger over them or lifting them and examining them up close. She went to my closet and opened it, fingering my clothes and smiling loosely. “Nathan Vach. A young man in a big house all by his lonesome. Very handsome and pure of heart ...”

 

   She turned and stared at me. “And so lonesome. So very alone.”

 

   She walked towards me, moving like silk in a dream. She sat once more at the edge of the bed. “So very alone ...”

 

   She stroked my cheek. “Where are your parents, Nathan? Where are your brothers and sisters?”

 

   She pulled my heart out and examined it like looking into a crystal ball. “There is great loss in here. Crippling loss. It is so strong that if you are indeed a Soul Bearer, the gift you’ve got to give me will never be released. You will not allow it to leave. You are tired of things leaving you. I will never be able to claim it. You’ll sabotage all efforts to part with it. Your heart will cling to it as it does everything left in your life—your possessions, this charming house, the love and affection you want to give to others but are so terribly afraid to ...”

 

   She continued studying my heart, then looked into my eyes.

 

   “But let’s ignore for now what you can do for me. Let’s focus on you, on this life of yours. Until you let go of that loss, Nathan, all that grief, the Cruxx will remain sundered from your soul. That’s a real problem. If it dies out there, all by itself, lonely, so lonely, _this_ heart, dear Nathan, _this_ heart—” she placed her palm on my chest just over my heart—“ _this_ heart will blacken, and you will lose yourself forever in darkness.”

 

   I could see it that instant in her own eyes—darkness.

 

   “Hold your heart for a moment,” she said. She handed it to me.

 

   I took it and stared at it. It had the same heft I imagined a flesh heart would have, but it was hard like a rock or perhaps fine, dense crystal of some kind. Its inward flashing corresponded precisely with the beat of the heart in my chest. I was fascinated.

 

   I looked up the moment she plunged her left hand into her own chest and pulled out her own heart of hearts.

 

   “Whoa!” I exhaled, surprised.

 

   She had cried in pain and hunched over slightly, but then recovered and showed me.

 

   Her heart of hearts was ... dark. It was actually coal-black in large parts. The glowing, bright red so ubiquitous in mine was located deep inside hers, like a dying light in a wind-blown cavern.

 

   “I have spent my life alone, just like you,” she said quietly. “You lost your family; and I never really had one. My mother abandoned me as an infant. I grew up in a hovel with a drunken lout for a father. I eventually ran away.”

 

   She gazed with sadness and anger at her heart, then at mine.

 

   “I filled my heart with resentment, bitterness, and revenge. For you see, Nathan, the Evil Queen is my half-sister who got a family. The same mother who abandoned me to die in the woods raised my half-sister and _gave her everything in the world!_ ”

 

   At that moment something shocking occurred. A patch of green appeared on her neck and quickly grew like a skin rash of some kind. I stared at it as she glared into her heart of hearts. With my free hand I reached and touched her neck, startling her.

 

   At that moment the patch, which threatened to overwhelm her entire face, halted its rapid progression. She brought her hand up and touched mine as mine continued touching her. Her skin was even softer than I had fantasized.

 

   She gently grasped my hand and pulled it away.

 

   “The Evil Queen,” I whispered, shaking my head, “is—your _sister?_ ”

 

   “Indeed,” she answered coldly.

 

   I honestly didn’t know what to say.

 

   It was clear she didn’t want to talk about it.

 

   “The trolls tried to mug me too,” she announced matter-of-factly, standing. “I very nearly joined you under that bridge. I was just behind you, maybe a hundred paces. I was looking for a special tree that grows in these parts whose wood makes a very powerful wand. They stole an extremely valuable pendant given to me by ...” she shrugged “... let’s call them somewhat stuffy acquaintances. I want it back. But the ones I dealt with on the bridge didn’t have it. They must have given it to the others that managed to escape.”

 

   I could see unabashed cruelty flare in her eyes, and a biting thirst for vengeance, and the same high, queenly stare her evil half-sister had.

 

   “I need your help, Nathan, just as you need mine.”

 

   She shoved her heart of hearts back into her chest. When she recovered, she reached for mine and repocketed it.

 

   I felt my own heart tingle again, like it wanted to do absolutely anything for her.

 

   “Trolls are partially magical beasts,” she informed me. “They can’t manipulate magic, but they are made, partially, _of_ magic, and unconsciously use it to enhance their strength. If I go hunting for that pendant, the magic they possess will inform them that I’m coming long before I get to them. They probably didn’t think I had the powers I do when they attacked you, and then me. Fools.

 

   “That pendant belongs to _me_ , and so its magic wants to be with me. They’ll be able to feel that, and know I am near. It will enhance their native powers. They’ll be able to elude me forever.

 

   “I want that pendant back. Which means I need you. I need you to steal it back from them. In exchange I will help you deal with your fear of loss, and then we can go and collect your Cruxx and merge it with this one and save you from a life of darkness. But first ...”

 

   Her mood morphed into something flirtatious and sweet. Immense danger lurked just beneath it.

 

   “... _you_ need to get better as quickly as possible!”

 

   With that, she waved her hand. I felt instantly drowsy and fell back onto my pillow.

 

   She bent and kissed my cheek.

 

   “Sleep, Nathan, and get better ... get better ... get better ...”

 

   Her whisper and the amazing feel of her lips against my skin were the last things I remembered before descending, once again, into unconsciousness.

 

~~*~~

 

Get better I did.

 

   It took the mogwai’s share of three months. In time my strength began to return. Zelena repeatedly used what she called “micro-magic” to set my broken bones and spur them to heal. It was very tiny bits of magic that wouldn’t cause me to die, split from my Cruxx as I was, but, carefully administered, could “sneak under” the danger, so to speak.

 

   As I got back on my feet, she regularly left, sometimes for three or four days, sometimes more. The last time she returned from such a hiatus, this one three days, I asked.

 

   She smiled stiffly. I’d made dinner—chicken soup—and served her a bowl. She took it and watched me sit, which, still healing, I only could with care. She gingerly sipped from a steaming spoonful, and the chill in her spirit seemed to melt. She sighed.

 

   “You are a marvelous cook. You should ...”

 

   She stopped. After a time she shook her head. She seemed to be mentally castigating herself about something.

 

   “I should what?” I asked as I poured us some ale.

 

   She stared blankly past my shoulder for a long time before refocusing on me. She held the gaze, then resumed looking around.

 

   “I feel safe here. I feel like this ... this little home you’ve got ...”

 

   She shrugged.

 

   Perhaps it was the fact that she still possessed my heart, or maybe it was the ale, that gave me the boldness to ask:

 

   “Who are you, Zelena? Who are you really?”

 

   She gave me a sideways smile, one I’d gotten used to and which was usually followed with a glib answer. But something caught her halfway this time, and she cocked her head. She went to take another spoonful of soup, but stopped and lowered it back into the bowl.

 

   “He’s a monkey now,” she said, glancing down at the table.

 

   I blinked, bewildered. “Who’s a monkey now?”

 

   “The Wizard. The Wizard of Oz. I turned him into a flying monkey. I’ve been Oz’s ruler for months now.”

 

   I was speechless.

 

   “I lifted the ban on the Munchkins ... I turned a few racist mucky-mucks who complained into monkeys as well ... I started a program to clean up the Dragon Piss Road. I opened the gates of the Emerald City to all, and I turned most of the judges and constables, all filthy and corrupt, into more flying monkeys ...”

 

   Her gaze was pleading, like she wanted me to believe her.

 

   “I haven’t been _all_ bad,” she went on defensively, taking an angry gulp of ale. “I know people think I’m evil, but I’m really not. I’m wicked, to be sure ...”

 

   It wasn’t a flirtatious smile this time, as it always had been after that declaration, but an honest one paid for with a lifetime of pain. There was no way to miss the regret and sadness behind it.

 

   “... but I’m _not_ evil. You want evil? Evil is half the population of that city! I’ve actually started to clean it up. But all everyone wants to do is pick at my scabs!”

 

   “You rule Oz ... but you’ve chosen ... to take care of— _me?_ ” I asked, unable to believe what I was hearing.

 

   She finished her soup in silence. “Delicious,” she whispered with the final spoonful. She wiped her mouth.

 

   I thought that she had chosen to ignore my last question, and so went to stand to clear away the dishes and retrieve more ale, but she touched my wrist. Her look was probing and troubled.

 

   “Why aren’t you angry at the ogres?”

 

   “Ogres?”

 

   She blinked. “They killed your family! Why don’t you want revenge? For that matter, why don’t you want revenge on the trolls who nearly killed _you?_ And your mother ... why do you not burn with rage at the injustice of the fact that your parents were not wealthy enough to pay for the potion that would have cured her? It exists, Nathan! She didn’t have to die! Not in a fairer world, she didn’t!”

 

   “You are angry that it is not a fairer world?”

 

   “Why aren’t you?”

 

   I didn’t have an answer. Her stare was as hard as actual sapphires.

 

   She rose and retrieved the shiny jeweled case in which she kept my heart of hearts, and returned. She sat and opened it.

 

   “There are three other witches ruling Oz with me,” she began. She smiled for a moment, as though she was going to praise them, then gave a quick sneer and resumed examining my heart, which glowed, pulsing calmly, bright and happy in its external home. “They are insufferable. They believe they are all light and goodness, and who knows, maybe they are. They taught me to let go of my envy and anger, and I did, at least enough to hide the outward evidence of it.”

 

   She aimed her piercing glare at me. As I watched, amazed, she turned completely green. It made her blue eyes and red lips stand out even more.

 

   I couldn’t help myself. I reached and touched her cheek. She did nothing to stop me, and did not flinch.

 

   “It’s ... beautiful,” I whispered.

 

   She took my hand in her green one and held it.

 

   “You’re the only one who thinks so,” she murmured sadly.

 

   The moment was locked in her stare. I couldn’t look away.

 

   She broke it by lifting my heart with her free hand and handing it to me.

 

   “It’s all light. It’s virtually pure,” she declared as I examined it with her. “You don’t fight back, Nathan. You don’t raise hell when you should. You don’t hate—when you _should_ , Nathan, when you _should_. You are ... you are just like those stuffed mannequins posing as witches—all goodness and light. Pure of heart. Noses in the air. Preachy and utterly useless.”

 

   Before I could protest, she added, “That’s where you are headed. You aren’t that now, but it is where you are headed.”

 

   “What do you suggest?” I asked somewhat breathlessly.

 

   “I know how to release that Soul Gift you have for me. I have helped heal your body, and I think I can help heal your soul, too. Otherwise you won’t be able to give it to me. And I want it. Soul Gifts are always great blessings.”

 

   Her eyes flashed a hint of sadness. But before I could be sure of it, she leaned in close, then closer still, until her green cheek grazed mine.

 

   “If you want to be truly good, my dear Nathan,” she whispered, her breath teasing my ear, “you’ve gotta be a little bad.”

 

   She kissed my cheek, holding her lips there for a couple of seconds. She wasn’t using magic on me, I was certain, but she might as well have. I was helpless.

 

   And then she was gone, disappearing in a soundless whirlwind of green smoke.

 

~~*~~

 

I didn’t see her for five weeks after that. I thought she might have decided to recover her pendant by herself and forget about me. After all, what good was I _ultimately?_ Not too damn much, I reckoned. Maybe she had figured that out.

 

   I couldn’t face trolls! The last time I did I nearly died! I had no magical ability. I was, for all intents and purposes, a young recluse living peacefully far from everyone.

 

   I thought a lot about what she said about me. And you know what? It was true. Before my body had been broken, my spirit had. It had lain wounded in this big house and had given up. The result was a pure heart that had no actual life in it, no real spark, no volition, no drive.

 

   For a long time I rationalized my inaction as practicality, as honoring my fallen family, as not wanting to sully myself in the dirty affairs of humanity and trolls and ogres and Munchkins and all the rest of them.

 

   She had warned me that I would become like her sister witches, that I’d become a “stuffed mannequin.” In essence, my goodness, like unworked calcium in an unused shoulder or knuckle or knee, would stiffen into arthritis. The purity would taint itself like the water in a still and stagnant pond. It would darken and become toxic.

 

   I had to learn how to let go and face life with courage, and let myself love again.

 

~~*~~

 

I was feeling much better. I got back out into the fields behind the house and began working to clear the weeds that had cluttered the garden during my convalescence. On the weekend of the fifth week I ventured into Lageb, bought fresh meat and supplies, made arrangements for the village grocer to bring them by as soon as possible (I didn’t have a horse or carriage, and so I paid him a hefty premium to bring supplies to me in bulk), stuffed my pack as full as I could to tide me over until he arrived, and made my way back home.

 

   I couldn’t get her out of my head. Everything I did had some connection to her. I thought it was because she had my heart of hearts, and tried dismissing it using that rationale, but somehow knew that wasn’t it. She wasn’t toying with me.

 

   She ruled Oz! _She_ was the ruler now! I couldn’t help thinking that over and over again as I hiked past hills and meadows and fields now as familiar to me as the back of my hand. That peckerwood Wizard was one of her flying monkeys! _She_ was Oz’s ruler now!

 

   I couldn’t stop thinking of her lips pressing against my cheek, her breath brushing my ear as she spoke what wasn’t a spell, but might as well have been one for the impact it had:

 

   _“If you want to be truly good, my dear Nathan, you’ve gotta be a little bad.”_

 

   I trusted that my Cruxx, no matter where it was (probably by the bridge, which I had _no_ intention whatsoever of going near again), was safe, that it wasn’t turning dark. In other words, I trusted Zelena. She wouldn’t forget about such an important thing. I trusted that.

 

   Behind the house was a cold shed. I unlocked it and went inside to unpack the groceries. I’d hurried into the house on the off chance she had returned, but it was clear after a few minutes looking around that she hadn’t.

 

   I finished putting everything away and was heading for the door when I noticed it—a familiar, shiny jeweled case in a dark, unused corner. It sat on a chest I knew was packed with clothes Mom put in here to keep moths away.

 

   I hurried to it and picked it up. It was the case with my heart of hearts!

 

   I’d forgotten about it all this time!

 

   Maybe Zelena _had_ used magic on me that night!

 

   It wasn’t locked. I pressed the small button next to the latch, and the latch swung open with a metallic clack as it struck the ornate facing.

 

   I opened it.

 

   My heart of hearts, pulsing at the same time my physical one did, lit up the darkened corner with a sleepy, contented red glow.

 

   A note was taped to the inside top. I breathlessly pulled it off and unfolded it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

> _My Lovely Nathan,_
> 
> _If you have found this, then you are ready for your mission to find your Cruxx and my pendant, and to begin your life anew._
> 
> _I have enchanted your heart. Just touch it and your new life can begin. Do nothing else with it. Just touch it. Do not try to put it back into your chest. You will die if you do, and that would be a great shame, for I truly enjoyed kissing that warm cheek of yours. Touch your heart and together we will heal each other, and the Gift you have waiting for me I shall claim with great joy._
> 
> _Miss looking into those big, beautiful brown eyes,_
> 
> _~Zelena_

 

   I read it several times. It was like her beauty was its own spell, and she had cast it onto the paper, and I was a slave to its whims. I brought the letter to my nose. It smelled like her. Whatever perfume she wore—the same she always wore—was for all time lodged in my spinal fluid that moment. No one else could ever wear it. It was hers and hers alone, forever.

 

   Minutes later I came to myself and put the note next to the case. I lifted the case and studied my heart.

 

   _So pure_ , I thought, staring at the radiance suffusing it and thinking of her heart, of the blackness which had nearly claimed the weak glow that struggled to stay alive in it.

 

   “I need some darkness,” I whispered, “but you need some light, my love.”

 

   I reached tentatively for my heart, my index finger hovering unsurely just before it touched it.

 

   Touching my heart of hearts would unleash a chain of events that would require that, ultimately, I changed who I was, what I believed, what I wanted from life. Touching my heart of hearts would ultimately darken it. Touching my heart of hearts would snuff a little of this radiance out.

 

   Wasn’t that a _bad_ thing? Mom taught me always to be good, and that was what I had endeavored to do above all things.

 

   Could too much goodness be a _bad_ thing?

 

   Was Zelena tricking me, manipulating me to her own ends? Was she using me?

 

   I didn’t know. If she was, she was being extraordinarily subtle about it, which made no sense. It made no sense because I couldn’t get out of my head the sight of those trolls stacked like furry firewood on the bridge, smoking and dismembered, wiped out with freakish fury.

 

   Subtle wasn’t Zelena’s way. What need of subtlety when one could do the things she could with a thoughtless wave of her hand?

 

   I considered the Wizard and what she did to him and many others in the Emerald City. It was safe to say that subtlety was _not_ employed. That made me happy.

 

   “I’m going to change,” I declared in the darkness enhanced by my heart’s pure red-white glow. “Nathan Vach is going to become something new.”

 

   I thought of Mom and Dad, and Jesse, and Dasciv, my brothers. I missed them all. I missed them all so much that when they died I decided to die with them, just much more slowly and significantly less courageously, all by myself in that big house.

 

   “I love all of you,” I murmured. “But it’s time for me to live.”

 

   I touched my heart.

 

   White smoke surrounded me, and I flew through the roof and into the settling blue sky. The world disappeared, then suddenly reappeared, green and glorious.

 

   I was in the Emerald Palace.

 

~~*~~

 

I’d never been here. It was glorious! I gawked up and around. The vaulted ceiling seemed miles above. Ahead was the throne at the summit of a series of widening golden steps. Behind it tremendous ornate crimson curtains hung from an archway. The air was cool and smelled pleasantly strange, almost like fruity incense.

 

   I turned in place, and that’s when I spied the guards. A pair of them were walking towards me from enormous double doors at least a hundred feet away. They wore golden, etched armor and carried menacing spears. Their face-plates were down. Once in range, the one on the left spoke. His voice sounded tinny.

 

   “This way, sir.”

 

   I was confused. “Er ... which way?”

 

   He lifted his spear and pointed towards the throne.

 

   “Yeah, right. Okay ...”

 

   I got to the stairs and began mounting them. The guards followed. Though bedecked in what was probably seventy pounds of metal, they had no trouble keeping up or climbing the stairs with me, and in fact sounded amazingly quiet. They barely creaked or clanked at all.

 

   I got to the throne. Like almost everything else in here, it was gold. The back of it was probably three times as tall as it needed to be. The seat was red velvet with fancy embroidery. I recognized the seal.

 

   “Wait here,” ordered the left guard. With his comrade, they marched around the throne and through the huge curtains. I didn’t see them again.

 

   _Well, all right_ , I thought as I waited, and sat on the throne.

 

   It wasn’t all that comfortable, truth be told. I could think of at least two chairs in my living room back home that were much more so than this ostentatious thing.

 

   I gazed forward and considered what it would be like to hold absolute power. How would I look upon the petitioners kneeling before me, each with his or her own urgent request?

 

   This place screamed “EGO!” It would be ridiculously easy to see the whole world through its gilded lens. It not only encouraged contempt, it demanded it.

 

   And it was all Zelena’s. Well, and her stuffy sister witches’, too.

 

   “Nathan? Are you here?”

 

   Zelena.

 

   Before I could stand, she came around the throne. I went to stand anyway, but she smiled and said, “No, no. Stay right there!”

 

   She fixed her gaze on me as she stalked around me like a lion around its prey. She looked amazing in a periwinkle gown with small white frills at her wrists and neck. I could smell her perfume, charged with immediacy and hope. The emerald light of the palace highlighted her red hair.

 

   “I do like it!” she remarked. “So often this chair defines the person sitting in it. But I daresay that you define it. Yes, yes ... quite handsome ... and noble. _Mmm_ ...” she purred.

 

   She extended her hand, and I took it. She pulled lightly, and I stood. We came together in a tight hug. “I knew you would come,” she murmured sweetly. “Are you ready?”

 

   I was swimming in her sea and didn’t care if I drowned. That’s probably why I said, “I’m ready for anything, My Lady.”

 

   We parted, and I boldly took her hand and brought it to my lips and kissed it. She watched me, those flirtatious, deadly eyes catching the light and making them glitter.

 

   I went to release it, but she held on. “I’ve got a way to get my pendant back. I really think it’ll work! Let me show you!”

 

   “All right,” I nodded. “Sure.”

 

   Holding my hand, she led me behind the curtains.

 

~~*~~

 

A door in a large wooden wall at the end of the corridor waited. It had very odd paintings surrounding it, many featuring the Wizard. She waved her hand and the door swung open.

 

   “This way,” she said, and walked into the dark. I followed.

 

   We passed a fine, private dining room, and then a quiet, well-appointed study. Another hundred feet or so we approached a flight of stairs that led to another, bigger flight that took us even deeper. Odd green spheres caught up to us and followed us down. I never learned what they were.

 

   At the bottom she waved her hand again, and another door, this one hidden and in a stone wall, opened. We went through, and the green spheres disappeared back up the stairs.

 

   “The stuffed hats don’t know about this place,” she said as she waved her hand again. Torches against the walls flared to life and the door closed. “They want to sit at the big round table in public view and talk about how good they are, how warm and fuzzy everything is if you just act properly, like all good witches do!” She raised her voice mockingly and tittered. “Sweetness and light solve all problems, don’t know you, Nathan? Just smile at it and pat it on the head, and it will behave! That’s what they’ve been doing to me. The sad thing is, it worked—for a while. But no longer.”

 

   I was listening to her, yes. But I was also looking at all the odd bottles and beakers and glass cups with mysterious bubbling liquids in them, and the twirly, twisty instruments, and wands, and the blackened skull on a small pedestal with the candle on top of its head and wax down its sides. The air smelled even stranger down here. Strange—but also very good. I couldn’t quite get a handle on it. It touched the back of my brain, but refused to come forward to be recognized.

 

   “I’m sorry they’re so miserable,” I offered genuinely, bringing my attention back to her. “I wish I could help.”

 

   Her bad mood evaporated as she strode towards me. Her wicked smile held me fast. “Oh, my sweet dear, you can, you can.”

 

   It was a moment I will take to my grave as one of the finest of my entire life, for it was the moment that she slid up against me, wrapped her arms around me, and kissed me.

 

   When I overcame my astonishment, I held her back and returned her passion with my own. When I did she moaned very softly and came to her toes (I was a good five inches taller than her) and teased my tongue with her own with even greater fervor.

 

   I was lust itself. There was Zelena and nothing else in my universe, and that was how I wanted it forever.

 

   She ended the kiss by sucking on my lower lip. _“Mmmm ...”_

 

   I wanted more; she brought her hand to my mouth and murmured, “I’ve wanted to do that for so long. I just wanted to give you a taste of what’s coming once you retrieve my pendant. That and much more. I promise.”

 

   She dropped her hand and kissed my lips, then licked them lightly, like they were covered with the sweetest frosting. “I promise.”

 

   I could scarcely get my larynx to work over my pounding heart. “You truly are wicked.”

 

   She smiled. But it wasn’t wickedly or flirtatiously. It was with genuine gratitude heavily spiced with sadness.

 

   “No matter what happens, Nathan, I want you to know that ... I ...”

 

   She stopped and glanced at the table with the odd-colored liquids in the odd beakers.

 

   “That you what?”

 

   But she wasn’t interested in continuing. It was also apparent that she wasn’t interested in letting me go. She returned her attention to me.

 

   “You’re a really good kisser,” she whispered, staring at my lips.

 

   “I’ve never kissed anyone in my entire life,” I stated with simple innocence.

 

   “One more?”

 

   “As many as you want, My Lady.”

 

   Our lips met again, very tentatively at first, and then with sudden, explosive passion. She grabbed the back of my head, lacing her fingers through my hair, as we worked less at what felt like kissing and more like simple, atavistic consumption of the other. Of the other’s _being_.

 

   She stopped abruptly. Her face was wet. Not from kissing, but from tears.

 

   “What’s ... what’s wrong?” I begged. “I’ll do anything for you. Anything. Just name it, Zelena. I’m yours.”

 

   She blinked more tears from her eyes and patted my chest with her free hand, which she brought from my lower back to between us. “You are ...” she sighed “... you are a beautiful and unique person, Nathan. You are a true treasure. You don’t even have your heart. I ... I can’t imagine what you’d be like if you did. That passion inside you ... it’s there. I can feel it, even now, even when I shouldn’t! I so want to find out. Oh, I do, I _do_ ...”

 

   “So why don’t you?” I demanded, apathetic, at least momentarily, about my still-wayward Cruxx or healing my soul so that when she put the Cruxx back in me I wouldn’t die. With only a tinge of bravado I said: “Put it back in me. Let me show you how I feel. How I _really_ feel. Please ... _please_ , My Lady ...”

 

   She hugged me, hiding her face from me. “I will ... I will ... How can I refuse such an offer?”

 

   We held each other in silence. Holding her was amazing. I could hear only the tranquil bubbling of the liquids in their beakers. I could feel her breathing against me, and the sensuous curve of the small of her back. I could feel how alone she was, how isolated she felt, and how angry that made her.

 

   How angry that made me.

 

   I was almost her spiritual twin. The only difference, really, besides the fact that we were opposite sexes, was that my heart was glowing almost purely white and hers was almost totally black. Was that why she clung to me now? Was that the wellspring of her passion for me?

 

   Did it matter?

 

   I had never fallen in love before. Without a doubt, I knew I loved her. I would be willing to die in order to help and protect her.

 

   She was probably ten years my senior. That didn’t seem to matter either. She certainly didn’t seem to care!

 

   She pulled back far enough to gaze at me. I reached between us and wiped a tear from her cheek.

 

   I thought we might kiss again, but she whispered, “How do you feel?”

 

   It didn’t take much thought to answer. “Like I can do anything with you in my arms. Like a god.”

 

   “Good,” she smiled with obvious effort. “Good. Then it worked.”

 

   I was confused. “What worked?”

 

   “I ...” she licked my lips again “... I gave you a potion. My lips ... my mouth ... when we kissed I gave you a potion. It’s a protection spell. It takes the courage you already have and ramps it up with a little assist from your own desire.”

 

   I chuckled incredulously. “You ... gave me a potion? In your _kiss?_ ”

 

   She grinned, her eyebrows lifting. “Delicious, isn’t it?” The grin faded. “It has another function, though. It will protect your soul for what comes next.”

 

   I was fascinated. I wasn’t angry that she just tricked me; I didn’t care if she did or not. I trusted her implicitly. She saved my life. Whatever darkness she possessed did not scare me. I knew somehow that she would never use it against me.

 

   “What comes next?” I asked.

 

   She released me. “The potion will protect you. It will mask your abilities as you seek my pendant, which my monkeys have found.”

 

   “Your monkeys? The flying ones?”

 

   “Yes,” she said with a sideways smirk. “They can be very useful.” The tears in her eyes and her red cheeks made me ache. She was trying very hard to regain composure and struggling.

 

   I wanted to help her do that, so I nodded as though discussing battle plans. I was her ally. “How do I deal with the trolls? I assume trolls still have it?”

 

   She nodded angrily. “Men too. Sometimes trolls will ally with men to further their rotten deeds.”

 

   I knew that about trolls, but for some reason the fact didn’t seem relevant until just now. She went to the table with the bubbling beakers and grabbed two, one with black liquid in it, one with white. There was one with yellow liquid in it, but she left that one alone.

 

   She came back. She gazed at me from over the steam rising from their tops.

 

   “I’ve worked very hard on these potions for weeks now. That’s pretty much all I’ve done whenever I can manage to get away from the stuffed hats. The problem is, Nathan, these potions ... they will only protect us for a day—twenty-four hours. I can’t make them any more potent or long-lasting than that. They fail if I try—and that includes the potion I just gave you with our kiss!”

 

   “ _More_ protection?”

 

   “Yes.”

 

   “Why are they different colors?”

 

   “One is for you ...”

 

   She handed the black potion to me.

 

   “... and this one is for me.”

 

   I gazed at the beaker with the yellow liquid. “What does that potion do?”

 

   She glanced quickly at it, then back at the floor between us. “It’s not quite ready.”

 

   That was all she seemed interested in saying about it.

 

   She held up the beaker with the white liquid. The teary smile she wore brightened a little. “To you, Nathan. To the goodness inside you that will protect my darkness.”

 

   I understood then why the potions were differently colored.

 

   I held up my beaker. “To you, My Lady. To the darkness that will protect my light.”

 

   We clicked beakers and drank.

 

   It didn’t taste bad. If anything, it tasted like sweetened black tea. We gulped our respective liquids until both were gone. I gazed at her. I didn’t feel differently at all.

 

   That didn’t last. Because what she did next was another life-changer.

 

   I didn’t notice the small, jeweled case in the corner until just then. Something (the potion?) drew my attention to it.

 

   It was the very same one my heart was in, and which I thought was still in my cold shed at home!

 

   “I’ll be damned!” I murmured.

 

   It had come with me!

 

   She went to it and extracted my heart from it and came back to face me. My heart glowed so powerfully that I was certain it could light up the entire room.

 

   “Take it,” she said, handing it to me.

 

   I took it.

 

   Which a sickening plunge of her hand into her own chest, she pulled out her darkened heart. When she recovered, she gazed at me.

 

   “At the same time,” she said, still catching her breath, “I want you to take your heart and put it in me, and I will do the same with my heart to you. It must be at the same time, or it won’t work. Understand?”

 

   I stared, dumbfounded.

 

   Her eyes glittered with new tears. “Do you trust me, Nathan?”

 

   I stared at her heart. “Is this dangerous?”

 

   With hesitation, she nodded. “Yes. Very. If you don’t return in twenty-four hours, your soul will rip my heart to pieces in your own chest. And my soul ... what little of it remains ... will do the same to me with yours. We will both die horribly.”

 

   “I thought our souls were in our hearts.”

 

   “No,” she sniffled. “Our souls rely on our hearts. But they are so much more. You taught me that, Nathan. _You_ did. It’s what inspired me to make these potions. It’s what showed me how to release a curse on the pendant that claims my powers once it’s off my person. I could do that even though it was in the hands of trolls miles and miles away. All because of _you_. It was you, my sweet Nathan, who inspired me to write down the recipe for an original potion that might be able to take me back in time. I thought if I could do that for you, take you back to your family, help you save them, that you would never have to face all that awful isolation ever again. Please, Nathan ... _do you trust me?_ ”

 

   I looked, astonished, into her wet eyes. “Do you trust me?”

 

   She nodded fitfully. “With all my heart.”

 

   “Together then, my love. One ... two ... _three!_ ”

 

   At the same moment we pushed our hearts into the other’s chest.

 

~~*~~

 

When I unclenched, when she did, we gazed into each other’s eyes.

 

   “How do you feel?” she asked.

 

   I goggled down at my chest, then back up at her. “I ... the same ... I guess ...”

 

   A big smile of relief brightened her face. “Oh, good! That’s good! My potions are working!” She hugged me tightly. “Good, good, _good!_ This might actually work!”

 

   She pulled back.

 

   “But not after twenty-four hours,” I said.

 

   “That’s right. You _must_ get back here before that or we will both die.”

 

   “I should get going then,” I said with justifiable urgency. “Where is your pendant?”

 

   “The men and trolls who have it are under constant watch by my monkeys. I’ve kept the monkeys from taking it back because, though they aren’t magical, they are made from magic and the trolls will detect that magic if they get too close, and I don’t want to take the chance of losing the pendant forever. Besides,” she sighed, “they have a penchant for screwing things up. It’s not far from here, maybe a hundred miles or so.”

 

   I blinked. “ _What?_ Zelena, I can’t make a hundred miles in _five_ _days_ , let alone there and back in _one!_ ”

 

   She smirked knowingly and came close. She came to her tippy-toes again and grazed my cheek with her lips. “You’ve got my heart, my darling,” she murmured very sexily. “And my potions are working perfectly.”

 

   She drew back and kissed the tip of my nose and gave me an impish smile. “Understand now?”

 

   I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She waited with obvious relish.

 

   “I ...” I chuckled “... I’m _magic_ now?”

 

   She kissed my lips. “You’ve _always_ been magical. Now ...” she wrinkled her nose “... you’re just a little more.”

 

   It wouldn’t register. I had her magic! I could wave my hand and do all sorts of things too!

 

   Did it require training? I went to ask, but then it struck me, and I gazed with horror at her.

 

   “You ... you have _my_ heart ... so you are _not_ magical now?”

 

   “Just temporarily,” she said with no obvious concern. “No more than a day.” She brought her hand to her chest. “I promise I will protect your heart no matter what. Have no fear, Nathan. You have my word. Do you trust me?”

 

   I laughed uncertainly. I still couldn’t believe this was happening. “Do you trust _me?_ ”

 

   She kissed me. I returned it. “Always,” she said. “Always.”

 

   We kissed again. When our lips parted, she smiled. “I’ve got some good news. I’ve located your Cruxx!”

 

   That _was_ good news. “Is it safe for me to collect? Is it about to turn dark?”

 

   “I think you are ready to be reunited with it. It’s very strong, just like you. There is plenty of time yet before it begins to darken. Have no fear.”

 

   She led me by the hand out of the potion room and back up the stairs to the palace, where we stopped behind the huge curtains. On a side table was a crystal ball on an ornate silver mount. She led me to it and released my hand.

 

   “Here is your first test. Go inside my heart and ask it to reveal the location of the trolls. It’s a simple bit of magic I have used for a long time now, so it should be easy for you to feel it and bring it to your consciousness. Go on, give it a try!”

 

   She seemed genuinely excited, which made me excited. I closed my eyes and concentrated.

 

   The weird thing was that what came to my consciousness didn’t feel like anything _but_ mine. Indeed, it felt entirely native to my being, and ridiculously easy to access. I opened my eyes and gazed into the transparent crystal sphere. Almost thoughtlessly I waved my hand over it.

 

   The ball’s interior clouded over instantly. The mist roiled, then dissipated.

 

   I was looking down between the boughs of what looked like myrtle and elm trees to an encampment of maybe ten or twelve trolls, with half a dozen men milling about with them. They had built a fire. Some were sitting in a loose circle around it and eating.

 

   I winced. That wasn’t beef. Or chicken. Or pork.

 

   The rage and contempt certainly felt like mine. My lip curled—something it had never done before but felt like I’d done it a thousand times. I brought my gaze to Zelena.

 

   The innocence in her stare caught me. She looked up from the ball.

 

   “It’s like ...” she began “... it’s like ... morning ... a new day ... a new sun ...”

 

   She reached for my cheek. Her smile was gone. “It’s ... almost unbearable ...”

 

   I grasped her hand.

 

   “What’s it like for you, Nathan? Tell me.”

 

   I held her hand and thought about what I must do.

 

   “It’s like midnight,” I said, anger and hate burning through me. “Like midnight, and it’s storming, and ...”

 

   I smiled. She waited. “And what?” she pressed.

 

   “Like I want to stand in the middle of it and bring it all down on me and take in its power.”

 

   She smiled—far too innocently. “I think you’re ready.”

 

   “Indeed,” I said confidently and coldly.

 

~~*~~

 

She led me to the palace courtyard. Politicians and suck-ups and other specks of dirt hurried out of our way as we approached. One of them must have been a personal so-and-so to her, because he approached like a starving rat and bowed, then simpered, “Your Highness! What is your pleasure today?”

 

   “Would you have everyone clear the courtyard, James?” she asked very nicely.

 

   He glanced at her, surprised. “Why ... certainly ... of course, Your Highness, immediately.”

 

   As he went about asking everyone to leave, she turned and stared at me, horrified.

 

   “How ... how is it we came together? How did I give you even a second’s notice? And—why didn’t you flee from me? I can see it in your eyes. I can see my anger and hate—in _your_ eyes! How can you stand it, Nathan?”

 

   The part of me that spoke wasn’t all Nathan Vach, and it wasn’t all Zelena. It came from a turbulent, creative mixture of both. I pulled her to me and kissed her.

 

   “Because I love you. Because you could see the darkness in me, and I could see the light in you. Because we belong together.”

 

   I gazed up. The sky above the courtyard’s trees was wispy with high clouds. I knew if I wanted I could fly right up to them.

 

   “Do you know how to find the trolls?”

 

   The magic from the crystal ball must have implanted itself in me, because I nodded confidently. I _did_ know.

 

   “Thank you, Nathan. Thank you for this. That pendant ... it focuses my power. It gives me new avenues of magical exploration. It’s invaluable, as are you.”

 

   I felt the power—Zelena’s power—surge through my body. It was a sensation I’d never felt before in my entire life—utter confidence, utter will, the desire to do whatever it took to meet a goal, and the contempt for any who stood in the way. The magic was right there, bubbling like a cauldron of boiling black tar.

 

   She released me and stepped back.

 

   “One invaluable green pendant coming right up,” I declared. I flourished my right hand between us. Green-white smoke surrounded me, and I rocketed into the wispy sky.

 

   Moments later I materialized on a forest road far from anywhere I’d ever ventured before.

 

~~*~~

 

I had always wanted to know what being a god must feel like. I strode down that lane like one. My legs felt heavy and light at the same time. They bounced with dense power, but also with the innocence of a man who had tried with all his might always to avoid anything scary or challenging. I was an adult and child at the same time.

 

   I stopped and glanced down at myself. I was still dressed in my traveling cloak and a favorite shirt and pants. The hiking boots I wore were years-old favorites.

 

   But Nathan Vach was something else now.

 

   I waved my hand and green-white smoke surrounded me. I thought, “Dress me”—and there in my mind was the image, made magically precise and temporally unhurried, of how I wanted to look.

 

   The smoke cleared. I looked down. I smiled.

 

   “Much better.”

 

   My cloak was no longer brown wool, but a shining, weightless black and green material in ornate patterns. It flowed around and behind my form like mists in a cave. My shirt and pants had changed to match—gray-blue, gold, and more black. I typically wore my shirts buttoned to the neck; the one I wore now was opened down to the third button, exposing my chest. My trousers were black and tight-fitting; the boots below them rose up to mid-calf, with pointed toes. Very comfortable.

 

   I stopped and glanced ahead. A thin rope of smoke trailed into the sky from the center of a copse of elm and myrtle trees a half-mile off.

 

   I smiled wider. It wasn’t one of joy, and it wasn’t one Nathan Vach would have ever smiled. That is, before that day on the bridge. The day I nearly died.

 

   But truly, that Nathan Vach _was_ dead. He really did die that day. The one who replaced him was much improved. And very much in love.

 

   I didn’t need to walk the rest of the way. I didn’t need to wait or plan. I knew exactly what to do.

 

   I waved my hand and rocketed into the sky. A moment later I materialized a hundred yards from the trolls’ encampment behind a thick, wide bush. Zelena’s potion would mask my magical presence, at least enough to help me get the job done. The monkeys, however, would still be able to sense me.

 

   I spied them. They had already found me. There were three of them, one each to distant trees that triangulated on the group. Zelena’s magic must have pointed them out, because they were expertly hidden and I knew I wouldn’t have seen them as the old me.

 

   They appeared confused as they stared at me. I closed my eyes, brought my index finger to my forehead, and thought:

 

   _Back home with you. She will feed you well for this good work. Off now with you_.

 

   They launched from their hiding posts. Their large wings were loud and brought the men and trolls to their feet, weapons drawn. That was what I wanted. I waved my hand and a moment later stood in the center of the group. They didn’t see me. They were still watching the monkeys.

 

   A man turned. _“Who the hell are you?”_

 

   The others wheeled about.

 

   Those were his final words. I motioned viciously at him and his heart—not his heart of hearts; his actual, physical, bloody heart—burst out of his chest and into the fire. He collapsed to the ground with a look of utter horror forever etched on his greasy, filthy visage. The others stopped cold in their tracks.

 

   “That’s better,” I said conversationally. I turned in place, looking each of them in their eyes, the trolls as well. They held battle maces that probably took two men to lift, and appeared ready to attack any moment. Something inside me told me they would, and to be ready.

 

   “Any of you remember me?” I asked pleasantly. “Anyone? No one? Pity.”

 

   The crackling of the campfire was the only sound in the entire forest. Even the birds had gone still.

 

   “Some members of your little party mugged me on a bridge near my home a few months ago. They knocked me unconscious and threw me off it. I nearly died.”

 

   I thrust my hand out and the bearded oldster glaring at me from my side clutched his chest, but not before his heart tore free from inside it and flew into the fire. The flames flared and crackled before settling once more.

 

   “That wasn’t us!” protested another, who stood behind me. “I’ve never seen you before in my life! Now leave us in—”

 

   I turned to face him, but only after his heart had flown over my head into the fire.

 

   “—peace?” I asked his lifeless, crumpled form, smiling wickedly. “Leave you—in _peace?_ Is that what you were going to say? Pie _ces_ , yes. But peace? Sorry.”

 

   There indeed weren’t men with the trolls that fateful day, but that didn’t excuse them. These men knew these trolls; it was the only way the trolls would consort with them. Trolls took a very long time to trust others, especially men. So the ones here and these hairy bipeds must have known each other for quite some time. They were _all_ accomplices.

 

   The three remaining men stared, frozen where they stood. One of them was wearing the shirt I had on that day. Another stood over my bedroll.

 

   It was clear they didn’t want to die like their comrades. Still, not one of them had the intelligence to lower their weapons. As for the trolls ...

 

   I turned slowly as I spoke. “My love had her pendant stolen the day you greedy bastards attacked me. She wants it back. She knows you have it. Give it to me now, and I’ll let all of you live.”

 

   I held up my hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I am a generous and forgiving man. My love, however ...”

 

   _“I have it.”_

 

   It was barely intelligible, that declaration. A troll had spoken it. Behind me.

 

   I turned.

 

   Of course, it was the largest of all of them. The leader.

 

   It lowered its mace. _“I’ve got it. Put away the magic and let’s do battle, just me n’ you. Whaddya say, human?”_

 

   I didn’t answer. Zelena’s wrath ... there was something astonishing about it: its ice-coldness with its sweet undertones, especially as it considered doing something especially wicked—just as I was with this beast.

 

   _“I remember you,”_ it went on with a low growl. _“I was there on that bridge that day. You should be dead—and so should that bitch who killed my brothers!”_

 

   “I could take it from you now,” I offered kindly. “There really is nothing stopping me.”

 

   _“Witches and wizards have no honor,”_ it growled. _“Fight me as a man, and if you defeat me, you shall earn your bitch’s talisman back. If I kill you, we keep it.”_

 

   “Show me the pendant.”

 

   The troll reached into a pack at his feet, pulled out a green pendant, and held it up. It looked identical to Zelena’s, who had had a jeweler create a fake one so that I would know what it looked like.

 

   I reached towards one of the men. His sword tore free of his grip and sailed into mine. I returned my smiling glare to the troll. “Deal.”

 

   The troll hefted its mace and attacked without another second’s notice, the pendant in its other fist.

 

   I had no combat training. I didn’t know the first thing about swordfighting. The troll came in with the mace ready to smash the life out of me, and the only thing I could think to do was drop the cutlass and rush the monster headlong. I dodged past the mace as it smashed into the earth and jumped on the beast and clawed up to its face.

 

   This wasn’t the old Nathan Vach, and it wasn’t something inspired by Zelena’s rage. This ... this was something else entirely. This was a _new_ Nathan Vach, angry boy-turned-man seeking bloody revenge for the mugging that damn near killed him. It surprised me as much as the troll, which bellowed as I reached its face and began punching mindlessly.

 

   It wasn’t going to end well. The monster grabbed me by my throat and held me at arm’s length and laughed. It squeezed.

 

   And squeezed harder. Then harder.

 

   “You aren’t fighting fair!” it roared when it became clear I was using magic to protect myself.

 

   “Neither are you!” I hissed. I threw out my hand, and the troll’s closed fist, the one with the pendant, opened. It was a fake, almost as good as the one Zelena’s jeweler had crafted. I knew it was fake before the fight even started.

 

   I thrust my hand behind me. The troll directly behind me—the one the boss troll didn’t want me see run away, as it was, real pendant in its possession, bellowed as the magic rope I’d conjured curled about its thighs and dragged it face first back to the camp.

 

   The boss troll threw me. I materialized in the center of the camp before striking the ground. The other troll was tangled in the magic rope there. I flicked my wrist and its fist reluctantly opened. There was Zelena’s pendant, gleaming green and beautifully authentic. I flicked again and it floated up and around my neck, where it clasped itself securely.

 

   Indeed, it was powerful. It felt like I had just connected my entire being to a lightning bolt.

 

   The boss troll and the others attacked. They came at me all at once, swords and maces raised.

 

   Here’s the thing. I was going return to Zelena, no more killing, and call it good. But they really pissed me off when they came at me like that. It didn’t help either that the pendant’s focusing power was _way_ too tempting.

 

   I disappeared in a swirling cloud of smoke, reappearing an instant later at the camp’s periphery. I snapped my fingers, and a bright casing of light surrounded each man and troll, freezing them in place. It held for a moment, then faded away.

 

   “I fell forty feet,” I snarled, all pretense of pleasantness gone. “I wonder: What would it be like to fall forty _thousand_ feet? You’re all about to find out! And you’ll have all the air pressure you need to survive _all the way back to the ground!_ ”

 

   I raised my arms. Trolls and men, roaring with fear and fury, rose helplessly into the sky. I snapped my fingers to unfreeze them so that I could enjoy watching them writhe and twist helplessly.

 

   I enhanced my voice with magic so that every single cell of theirs would hear me in these, their final moments.

 

   _“Enjoy the trip to heaven, boys, BECAUSE THAT’S NOT WHERE YOU’RE GOING TO END UP!”_

 

   I thrust my arms at them, calling on every ounce of Zelena’s awesome magical strength focused like light through a magnifying glass by the pendant, and the men and trolls blasted into the sky like a fireworks display of filth, rising, rising, rising until they were virtually invisible against those wispy, gliding clouds. They passed through them and went higher still. I jerked my arms apart with a cry of victory, and the filthy fireworks display exploded apart. Men and trolls began their long descent to the unforgiving earth.

 

   I watched them fall for a few moments, relishing the knowledge that each and every one of them were alive and conscious and screaming, and would be all the way to their gruesome deaths.

 

   I went back to the campfire, thought for a few moments, and waved my hand.

 

   Moments later I materialized near the bridge where I had been mugged and left for dead. I had a few things to find, including my Cruxx.

 

   I couldn’t locate it. I wasn’t worried about it, and for that reason I didn’t really search all that hard for it. Zelena knew where it was, and that was good enough for me.

 

   As for the other items, I found them after maybe an hour of looking. Satisfied, I vanished in a green-white cloud of smoke for home.

 

~~*~~

 

“I was getting worried! I couldn’t even use the crystal ball to watch you!”

 

   I heard her voice before I saw her. The green-white smoke was still clearing. She rushed into my arms. I held her and wished there was no such thing as death.

 

   I released her and held up her pendant.

 

   “Thank you,” she breathed. “Thank you so much, Nathan.”

 

   I went behind her and clasped it around her neck. Too tempting. I bent and softly kissed where chain gold touched her skin. She leaned against me, closed her eyes, and sighed.

 

   I wrapped my arms around her as our mouths met and the smoke surrounded us. Moments later we were in my bedroom.

 

~~*~~

 

We made love with the other’s heart beating madly in our chests. I will take it to my grave as the single most intense and erotic experience of my life. I could feel her in a way that transcended the very notion of intimacy, and she me. I could feel what she wanted and passionately gave it to her, and she reciprocated in turn. We became in those almost unbearable moments a single living organism with two hearts working in perfect concert. As the constraints of lust pushed me beyond all self-control, I flipped her onto her back and worked furiously over and inside her, kissing her like a man dying of thirst. We came together with only the noise of our mouths and flesh furiously meeting; and it was at that very moment that I felt something leave me. Something poignant and breathtakingly beautiful. My Soul Gift.

 

   What was it? I was never sure. I only learned of one of its consequences that moment, which was that it would gift her someday with the tremendous strength necessary to make a momentous decision that would help her overcome a terrible obstacle. (Kill the Evil Queen, perhaps? It seemed likely; but then I simply didn’t know.) I believe it was only by virtue of her heart being in my chest that I learned even that much. It felt like I had by way of her ingenuity gotten a glimpse behind the curtains, so to speak, one that in any other circumstance would never have happened.

 

   At that moment it did not matter. At that moment we had each other. That moment ... which bounded ever closer to when we wouldn’t have each other. Not for a long time. I knew that, too. Just a few hours away.

 

   Holding each other in the bittersweet silence afterward, she whispered, “I love you.”

 

   “I love you, my wicked one.”

 

~~*~~

 

Using magic, I made her a late-night dinner fit for a queen. It was well after midnight, so it was more like a very sumptuous early breakfast. We drank brandy. We clinked glasses, sipped, then kissed. The liquor on her lips tasted heavenly. We kissed again. She laid her head on my shoulder and breathed deeply.

 

   “I felt it.”

 

   “I did too.”

 

   “I’m so scared, Nathan.”

 

   “I’m scared too.” I pulled back and looked into her glistening eyes. “Do you feel anything new? Anything at all?”

 

   She nodded. I waited expectantly. I’d wondered so much what this Soul Gift I “grew” inside my spirit was all about that I couldn’t help but be acutely interested.

 

   She closed her eyes instead, dropped her head against my shoulder once more, and began sobbing in earnest.

 

   I didn’t know what to say. There truly was nothing _to_ say.

 

   “I can feel it, Nathan. I can feel your loss ... your mom, your dad, Jesse, Dasciv ... Oh, Nathan ... how can you stand this? How do you live with it? You are so strong ... I’ve been with this with less than a day and it’s already enough to make me want to jump off that troll bridge! How can you stand this?”

 

   “Look what it made of me,” I answered quietly. “A shut-in. A recluse. Until you, I had no friends. I taught myself. I fended for myself. Until you, I was just as much a casualty as they were. I could ask the same question of you, my love. I can feel the pain of abandonment in you. I can feel anger burning in the bottom of your heart for Regina, and for your mother. The envy. The rage. I have never felt anything like it. I have never felt such pain. How can _you_ stand it?”

 

   She stroked my cheek. I lifted her chin and kissed those amazing lips. They tasted not like brandy now, but salt.

 

   “I ... I must leave you,” she wept. “I ... it’s part of the Gift. I’ve long suspected I must—a feeling, an instinct—ever since we met, but now ... now I know it. I must abandon you, my sweet Nathan. I must abandon you! _You!_ ”

 

   My own eyes burned. “I know.”

 

   I glanced at the clock on the hearth. It was just after four-thirty. We still had five hours.

 

   Even in this state, her face red with tears, her hair mussed from passion, she was the most beautiful sight I had ever beheld. She was clad only in one of my quilts. Her perfume, mixed with her own scent, made concentrating almost impossible. But I had to.

 

   “I have an idea,” I said.

 

   She waited for me to go on. “What? What’s your idea?”

 

   “You must leave me. But not my heart. Let me use your magic to give you half of my heart. I will take half of yours. We will _always_ have each other. You will have my light. I will have your darkness. We will learn from each other _forever_. We will struggle and fight with those halves, and because of that we will grow in strength and love for each other and for those around us, and for those we have yet to meet. Together we will become powerful and wicked, _and_ good and true, no matter how far apart we may be. Maybe the Soul Gift _needs_ half of my heart in your chest in order for it to gift itself to you fully. Like you, I have a feeling, an instinct, that it does. I really do.”

 

   As she stared, I suddenly figured out what that yellow potion was back in the castle in the Emerald City—the potion we didn’t drink. Nathan Vach would never have thought of it. But Nathan Vach with this wondrous sorceress’ dark heart in his chest was not so naive.

 

   Tears streaming down her cheeks, she kissed me.

 

   I heard the now-familiar sound. She moaned in my mouth and thrust her tongue more deeply inside it. I broke the kiss and pulled back.

 

   In her hand was my heart.

 

   I brought her mouth back to mine. With my free hand I reached inside my chest and pulled out her heart. We parted so that she could look at it.

 

   “I want you to have it. All of it, Nathan. I don’t care anymore about magic. I don’t want it anymore! Magic always comes with a price, and I have paid it all my life!”

 

   I held her and let her cry, our hearts held closely together between us.

 

   “You _do_ care, my wicked one. If magic always comes with a price, then let me pay it with you. Let it be something else we can share. You need your magic for what’s coming. You know it, and with your heart in my chest I know it, too. Even with only half your heart, you will still be very powerful. Maybe even more so. Let the outrage you feel over my sad little life and losing my family darken my half. It will be very powerful fuel, even if ...” I thought of the yellow potion again “... even if you don’t know what that outrage is about. You know it will be.”

 

   She sniffled. “What about you, my love?”

 

   I kissed her and smiled. “If I want to be truly good, I’ve gotta be a little bad.”

 

   She sniffled again and laughed.

 

   We held each other as the moment bounded for the vast desert of our separation.

 

~~*~~

 

We stood at the potion table back in the castle. The yellow potion waited.

 

   She was dressed in a purple gown. Her pendant was off. There are moments in life that etch themselves forever upon one’s heart. For me, the vivid spectacle of her beauty just then was one of them. I knew that etching would stay with me even though it was her heart in my chest. It was then, with great sadness, that I understood just how much greater the human soul was than the mere shell of a human body.

 

   At the same time, we reached inside our chests one more time and pulled the other’s heart out.

 

   “Are you ready?” she asked, her voice breaking.

 

   A tear streaked down my cheek. “I am.”

 

   “We must do this together, at the same time. On three. One ... two ... _three_.”

 

   Together, with the other’s heart in our hands, we gently twisted the hearts. At the same time, they split in two. It hurt. But most of the pain was simple sorrow. I stared at my heart in her hands, broken in two. Hers waited in the same state in mine.

 

   We put a half on the table. She handed me the other half of mine. I took it and with the half of her heart still in my grip brought the two together. As we both watched, the heart-halves melded into a single whole. The new heart glowed on one half, and was dark on the other.

 

   Zelena blinked more tears out of her eyes. “It still feels broken.”

 

   I nodded. I could scarcely see anything through my own watery vision. I handed her the newly formed heart. She took it and thrust it into her chest.

 

   “Oh, Nathan ...” she wept.

 

   I took the halves on the table next to the yellow potion and brought them together, then put the new heart, which looked just like the other one, into my chest.

 

   Heartbreak. Abandonment. Loss. Rage. Anger. Envy.

 

   But also: Passion. Joy. Connection. Hope. And—dare I say it? The chance for redemption. Our happy endings. Even if it meant we would have to wait years for it.

 

   That was what the yellow potion was for.

 

   It was time. We were just ahead of the clock. Our new hearts would protect us from any ill effects from the magic used to exchange them. Our souls were safe. Safer, in fact, than they had ever been. They were healing each other, each half to and with the other.

 

   She took the beaker with the yellow liquid and poured each of us a glass. It was a very powerful forgetting potion.

 

   I studied it. These unforgettable months would soon be utterly and completely forgotten. In this liquid a new story would insinuate itself in place of my true memories. She did not rescue me, no. Somehow I rescued myself. Or someone else rescued me. I regained my health. The magic would fill in the details and plot holes perfectly. I knew that. Zelena was a first-rate sorceress. She’d leave nothing to chance, including my Cruxx, still free from my person, still waiting for me to find it and reclaim it. With half of her heart in my chest, I didn’t need her to be with me once I did.

 

   All that passion and love. Her kisses. Her body. Her wit and intelligence. Her radiance. Her wickedness and darkness, both infinitely more precious to me now than my light. The feel of her. Her scent.

 

   I took a deep breath and readied myself. “Okay. I’m ready.”

 

   She took the single step that separated us and kissed me one last time.

 

   Etched. Forever.

 

   Her lips pulled free.

 

   The horizon was years and years away.

 

   One more look into those sapphire eyes.

 

   “I love you.”

 

   Before she could respond, I closed my eyes, lifted the glass, and downed the forgetting potion in two gulps. I felt motion upward, and I lost consciousness.

 

~~*~~

 

You might be wondering how, if I took a forgetting potion, I have recalled everything that happened.

 

   Allow me to tell you.

 

   I woke in my own bed, stretched as I sat up, and stood. All those false memories were waiting for me—ones that I would base the next sixty-six years of my life on.

 

   That’s right. I’m writing this tale as an eighty-six-year-old man.

 

   Zelena had been thorough in her potion-making. She indeed covered all the bases. The troll bridge was empty, just as I hoped it would be. I got home safe and sound and hoping to see Brynn again, and maybe give her my Soul Gift. The plot-hole of my recovery time was filled by doing what I always had: by simply living my sad, lonely life. Nothing really memorable had occurred during that time; nothing worth fretting over or getting excited about. It all added up perfectly.

 

   She had tweaked the potion. I became restless in a way I had never experienced before. I wasn’t interested in holing up anymore. Eventually I packed my bedroll (she had even replaced the stolen one, along with my shirt) and trekked to Lageb, where I met an elder councilwoman who was involved in a fight against the mayor to keep taxes from being raised. Somehow that interested me when in the past I wouldn’t have cared less. I promised her that on my way home to my ultimate destination, which was to see Brynn again, that I’d help her. I left Lageb feeling something very like dawn rise in my chest after a long, melancholy night.

 

   Outside of Echeld, the Munchkin village where Brynn lived, I had a sudden compulsion to walk up a trail I knew led to a lovely lookout. It was still early in the day, and I was in grand spirits, so I shrugged and ambled up the trail.

 

   At the top were a cluster of boulders. One of them had ornate six-inch initials engraved on it:

 

**N.V.**

 

   _My_ initials!

 

   Another compulsion overcame me, this one the urge to touch the stone. I did. The stone cracked. I backed up a quick step.

 

   From it issued a beautiful, almost solid red glow. It focused like a lighthouse beam on my chest, and I felt a wonderful warmth radiate to my fingertips, and this incredible sense of being found, and tremendous joy. And then I fainted.

 

   When I woke, I sat up and shook myself off (I was covered in leaves and pine needles) and glanced with amazement at the stone.

 

   The initials—were gone! The stone was whole again! It was like I had hallucinated the entire thing!

 

   I scrambled to my feet and glanced around. Was this a trap? Had I been robbed?

 

   I rifled through my belongings. Everything was there, including my money. Judging by the daylight, I had spent most of the afternoon unconscious. Sunset was maybe an hour off.

 

   What the hell happened?

 

   I went to the rock and cautiously touched it. Nothing happened. Bewildered, I turned to collect my things, and that’s when I saw it—a note half-buried by the leaves where I had been lying. I stooped, picked it up, and unfolded it. It was on fine white linen. I brought it to my nose. It was odorless. The loopy cursive suggested that a woman had written it. It said:

 

 _Half-and-half_  
It’s not such a laugh  
A moment in the sun  
Lost kisses won  
She’s waiting for you  
And to her you must be true  
While always forgetting ...  
that I love you

 

   I was certain that it was a note that a heartbroken Munchkin had written to her lover, who for some reason had forgotten about their love and had gotten himself involved with another. I went to put it back, thinking that I had no business keeping it, but again I felt a strong compulsion. This one urged me to keep it. It was even stronger than the compulsion that led me to the magical cracking boulder, so I put the note in my pack and got on my way. I was very excited to see Brynn again, and maybe, if things were going well, to share the unsettling events of the day.

 

   She greeted me at the door with a brilliant and disarming smile. A hint of her perfume greeted my nose. It was like smelling heaven after a sunshower. It mixed with my spinal fluid and lodged in my soul. I knew I’d never forget it, that it was hers and hers alone.

 

~~*~~

 

We married a year later. We would spend the next fifty-eight years together. We made my lonely home one of joy and community and children—three to be exact, who grew up, got married, and gave us grandkids, eleven at last count, and two great-grandchildren.

 

   Brynn was everything to me. I loved her, and will forever. She helped me heal from the loss of my family. And she gave me a new one.

 

   With her father’s help and connections, I soon became a very involved member of not only Echeld, but Lageb, too. Five years after I watched my bride walk up the aisle towards me, I ran for and became mayor of Lageb.

 

   (Oz was a Constitutional Monarchy that, in its less authoritarian eras, actually strived for something that appeared democratic.)

 

   A couple of days after I woke from the forgetting potion, I found something remarkable in a forgotten corner of the cold shed. It was a wand! It looked like it had been fashioned from one of the local trees. When I picked it up an overwhelming warmth issued from it into my hand. Magic! Somehow it gifted me with a message, which, extraordinarily, sounded like me whispering:

 

 _I’m yours. Learn to use me_.

 

   So I did. Over the next six and a half decades I learned the ways of magic. I learned, as I had after my family died, by teaching myself. I spoke to wizards and witches. I traveled widely in pursuit of knowledge whenever I got the chance.

 

   Most of them tried to tell me that magic was “light” or “dark.” They tried to tell me I had to choose one. But every time I hefted my wand I could tell—I could _feel_ —that it wanted me to learn both, that both were far more related and mixed than those purists could possibly imagine.

 

   So I learned both. I became powerful. Over time I became very powerful.

 

   Zelena’s “stuffed hat” sister witches turned out to be magical fascists who eventually tried to outlaw all magic and magical creatures save themselves, convinced, as all fascists are, that only they can handle the responsibility brought by power, be it magical or political.

 

   Zelena, who I became distantly familiar with as a regular citizen does of its leaders and utterly unaware so much more had occurred with her, had already banned one of them, Glinda; but the other two, upon Zelena’s departure to another Realm, formed a joint dictatorship and began actively persecuting the citizenry. Lageb and Echeld’s locals came to me and urged me to confront them. Two years later I did. On the Dragon Piss Road outside the Emerald City, we did battle. They were no match for my combination of light and dark magic, and both fell. Oz, delivered from their totalitarian clutches, rejoiced.

 

   I went home feeling extraordinarily humbled and proud, thinking that was it as far as any heroics were concerned, and that I could relax and be with Brynn and my children and continue being of service to Lageb and Echeld. But a knock on my door half a year later ended that wish for the next thirty-four years. At the door was Mr. Dinys, my father-in-law, with about a hundred Munchkins and maybe twice that of humans, all bearing torches. They had a massive petition. They wanted me to be the next king of Oz, and weren’t going to take no for an answer.

 

   A year later I sat for the first time on Oz’s throne not as a young man in love waiting for his wicked one (not knowing I had done so, of course), but as the ruler of the entire land.

 

   I’d like to think I was a good ruler. Always uppermost were the wishes of the people, and especially concern for those least fortunate. With that in mind I formed a cabinet of advisors that included mostly Munchkins and women. Of Munchkinland, since they were a province of Oz and one I cared about dearly, but one that had been entirely neglected by countless royals in the past, I worked very hard to “bring them into the fold,” as it were. That work paid off handsomely for everyone in countless ways.

 

   I ramped up Zelena’s program to clean up the Dragon Piss Road and the villages along it. By doing so I created lots of well-paying jobs. Unemployment fell to almost zero. I empowered local constables to be much stronger in protecting their citizens from bandits and trolls. With Xenophon Dunk’s help as one of my chief advisors, we found a way to fund free medical care for all citizens. No one would ever have to suffer the grief I did when Mom died. “Vach-care” was immediately very popular.

 

   As for the trolls, I tried working with them. I really did. But they had no interest in peace, having for some reason decided that I was a serious threat, and so Oz, for three awful years, went to war within our own borders. Trolls, it turned out, were much better at organizing and banding together for a cause than I ever thought possible. Outrageously, many men joined them. Even more outrageously, many wizards and witches banded together to prevent me from using my powers to bring a swift and decisive end to the conflict.

 

   The Troll War was bloody and tragic, and finally ended when I and my own special unit of wizards and witches found and exterminated the last traitorous mage and thereby released the curse they had cast upon my powers.

 

   I sat imperiously on Oz’s throne and watched the bloated, narcissistic, balding “King” Pūtrump, who managed to bring together thousands of his kind and men into an astonishingly tough and formidable fighting force, grovel on his knees three steps below.

 

   I didn’t sit often in that chair. When I did, the citizenry knew I was pissed off. I had taken more than a month to consider a punishment, one worthy of the crimes the trolls and their men, wizards, and witches perpetrated upon Oz’s citizens. The one I came up with Zelena would have been very proud of.

 

   I stood and waved my wand, and “King” Pūtrump’s heart of hearts, along with the heart of hearts of every single troll in Oz, and the men who joined them, burst out of his, and their, chests. No one saw it coming.

 

   Tens of thousands of blackened heart of hearts gathered like a vile, swirling cloud above the Emerald City. I crossed the main moat and with a brilliant flash from my wand destroyed it. I flourished my wand again and the hearts descended to form what became known as the Troll Bridge—an arching, high bridge into the Emerald City made of the heart of hearts of every troll in Oz, and the men who took up arms in their cause.

 

   Since I possessed them all, I could command them to do anything, and they would be compelled to obey me. So I commanded:

 

   _“Until you die, every one of you, should you be seen by any human or Munchkin after three days hence, you will happily and faithfully serve them at their pleasure for a period not to exceed ten years.”_

 

   I knelt and jammed the tip of my wand into the earth. A bright yellow circle of light expanded rapidly from it and disappeared in all directions out of sight.

 

   _“As for all adult trolls who did not fight, they shall lose their heart of hearts for every moment they are in Oz. If they choose to leave Oz, they can retrieve them. If they choose to make trouble of any kind on their way out, we will hunt them down and leave their bodies where they fall. The same curse applies to all trolls visiting us from other lands. SO BE IT!”_

 

   I stood. The large crowd surrounding me stared both at me and the quickly forming Troll Bridge in awed silence. “King” Pūtrump and his lieutenants looked small and feeble as they stood there.

_“As for the men who took up arms against Oz,”_ I roared, _“I say today: you behaved as trolls, so you will join them as trolls yourselves!”_

 

   Another flourish of my wand, and every man who took up arms in the trolls’ evil cause, or collaborated with them in any way, no matter where they were, seen or unseen, turned into trolls.

 

   There hasn’t been a single sighting of a troll in almost twenty-seven years. The Troll Bridge, though it started with a faint red, disparately pulsing glow, became more and more like any stonework bridge as the trolls died off. It is almost entirely stone today. Just a few heart of hearts remain.

 

   Shortly after that I offered to resign as king. I felt it only right. Under my watch many of Oz’s sons and daughters had died in battle, and many fields had been blackened by the violence of war and the soil wet by spilled blood. I decreed the citizens should vote on it.

 

   They did. By an overwhelming margin of twenty-six percent, the citizens of Oz declared they wanted me to stay as their monarch. And so, for the same number of years as my margin of victory, I continued to sit on Oz’s throne.

 

   When it came time for me to step down, I could have chosen one of my kids to take the throne, and thought I might choose one of them. But none of them were interested. So I picked my closest advisor, a wise and eminently qualified Munchkin named Hilari. She was best friends with Cheräs Dinys, my father-in-law, who had recently passed away. Her ascension to the throne as the Queen of Oz will stand in my mind as one of my greatest joys, for never before had a Munchkin been ruler of the land that they had shared with humans for thousands of years. I went back to Lageb, to our home, and there I lived in peace and joy with my Brynn for the next twenty-one years.

 

   An interesting aside. When I handed the Royal Scepter to Hilari, a wondrous warmth issued from my hand, quite unbidden, into the Scepter and into her hand. I could tell she felt it too. I had felt similar moments during my life with others. It seemed every time it happened that the person who experienced it with me went on to do great things. I never knew what that thing could be except a Soul Gift.

 

   Notably, I didn’t experience any more visions. At least, nothing you would call visions. Nothing that I was sure _were_ visions.

 

   Hilari indeed turned out to be a great queen. I’d say as far as rulers go, she was, in my opinion, better than all of them, including me. She sits on the throne to this day.

 

   As far as Brynn went, I never felt such a sensation with her. It never occurred. I reasoned that the Gift I had to give her was of a different nature, perhaps, and so was much more subtle, and convinced myself that I had indeed given her one. She spoke many times of how blessed she was, how fortunate, and how happy. That was good enough to convince me.

 

~~*~~

 

The illness that took her was sudden and, for a time, excruciatingly painful. The kingdom’s finest healers couldn’t touch it. Neither could I. They guessed that it was some form of consumption.

 

   Desperate for help, I decided to summon help from Misthaven—the Enchanted Forest. I remembered the stories of Rumpelstiltskin, the wizard who finally ended the Third Ogres War.

 

   His power was legendary. If anyone could save my Brynn, it was he. I needed only go to one of the old portals, crumbling and no longer functional, and utter his name three times. Rumpelstiltskin was rumored to be so powerful that he could breach the barrier between our Realms and provide assistance. I was also warned that he was a trickster and would do nothing without getting something very valuable in return. As a former monarch, I didn’t worry about it. I had access to more wealth than any man or woman should ever have.

 

   I materialized next to the first portal from the Emerald City (about ten miles away from it) and pulled my wand from my pocket and held it up.

 

   “Rumpelstiltskin,” I intoned as I was told was needed. “Rumpelstiltskin. Rumpelstiltskin.”

 

   I stepped back and waited.

 

   He materialized out of a cloud of swirling red smoke fifteen minutes later. We gazed at each other silently, sizing each other up.

 

   I had been told he looked like an imp, with scaly gray skin and wild eyes and long nails. He was known as “The Dark One” for his endlessly nasty deeds. But the wizard standing before me didn’t have wild eyes or weird skin or unnatural nails. He had short parted gray hair and an impatient smile, and wore a tasteful crimson coat.

 

   “Yes? Can I help you?”

 

   I pocketed my wand and approached and held out my hand in greeting. He took it.

 

   “I’m sorry, Rumpelstiltskin,” I began, eager to get right to the point. “Forgive me for taking you away from your life. My wife is very ill and I am desperate for help. I thought you might be able to help her.”

 

   He studied me with interest. “You must be very powerful to get my attention across shuttered Realms. What is your name?”

 

   “Nathan Vach, sir,” I said, releasing his hand and bowing. He continued to watch me with interest. “Retired King of Oz.”

 

   “May I see the wand you were just holding, sire?”

 

   “Of course.”

 

   I pulled it out of my pocket and handed it to him. He studied it with fascination for a long time. “This is a _married_ wand,” he observed as though unable to believe it.

 

   I didn’t know what that meant. I asked. He studied it for some time longer, then handed it back. “A married wand is a wand that has married both light and dark magics and integrated their power. Such a thing has been theorized for thousands of years but never achieved, not even by me.”

 

   He stepped closer. “Would you mind if I checked your heart?”

 

   I wasn’t afraid of him. I wasn’t afraid of anything but losing my beautiful wife.

 

   “Sure. Go ahead.”

 

   He thrust his hand into my chest and yanked my heart of hearts out. I unbent from the pain and looked.

 

   My heart of hearts was a beautiful, swirling, dynamic mix of dark and light. They danced like lovers, twisting and twirling around one another mesmerizingly. The Dark One was fascinated.

 

   “In centuries of magic, I have never seen this before,” he whispered. “It’s almost as if ... as if ... this heart is a fusion of ... _two_ hearts, not one.”

 

   He brought his stare to me. “Nathan Vach, you say?”

 

   “Yes, sir.”

 

   I thought at that point that he might try to control or manipulate me, or attempt to strike a deal. But he didn’t. Entirely reasonably, he thrust my heart of hearts back into my chest, wiped his hands, and said, “Shall we see what we can do for your bride, Your Majesty?”

 

   “Yes,” I returned, flummoxed, “let’s. Please.”

 

   I flourished my hand and we disappeared in a cloud of green-white smoke for my home.

 

   But there was nothing Rumpelstiltskin could do except fashion a potion for Brynn’s pain. No healer had been able to do even that much. It required, coincidentally, a portion of my heart of hearts magically dissolved into brandy. He handed the potion to me. “This will last a month.” He gave me a look that told me a month was more than enough. Brynn reached up from bed and shook his hand and thanked him.

 

   “You are more than welcome, Your Majesty,” he said, grasping her hand in both of his with great grace.

 

   We went back to the portal.

 

   “Forgive me, sir,” I said once the smoke cleared, “but I was told that you did nothing without a deal.”

 

   His smile was one of regret and hard-won wisdom. “I’m happy to say that those days are long since over. Your bride is very ill, sire. I am glad to be of whatever service I can render.”

 

   He glanced down at the Dragon Piss Road. “You know, I’ve got no use for all the gold I’ve created over the centuries. There are mountains of it. So I think I’ll leave Oz with a little gift,” he said, withdrawing a fabulous dagger that bore his name.

 

   He waved it over the road.

 

   The tired yellow of the piss colored over in all directions with a sheen of brilliant, _actual_ gold. I gawked down at it and started laughing.

 

   “My God! You’ll have the entire population out here trying to chip it up!”

 

   “It’s enchanted,” he informed me. “They won’t be able to do any harm to it. Besides, I’ve learned to the chagrin of my ex-wife that if you want to be truly good—” he grinned and crinkled his nose—“you’ve gotta be a little bad.”

 

   I laughed again. We shook hands. He inclined his head. “I hope to meet you again, sire.”

 

   “And I you, Rumpelstiltskin. And please. Just Nathan to my friends.”

 

   “Will do. Just Rumpel for me, Nathan. Someday I may have need of your remarkable powers. If I call for you, would you be willing?”

 

   “To the degree my advanced age allows and won’t slow you down in your mission, of course,” I said. “I am forever grateful for your help, Rumpel.”

 

   He smiled sadly. “Best be off to your wife.”

 

   “Thanks again.”

 

   He bowed and disappeared in swirling red smoke back to Misthaven.

 

   I went back to Brynn.

 

   She died twenty-two days later. They were, at the very least, painless days. She died surrounded by me, our kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. The day after we buried her in the field behind the house, I mixed the remaining potion with more brandy and downed it. But I knew even as I did that nothing would take away the pain of my Brynn’s passing.

 

   Once the funeral was over, once the kids had gone back to their lives, I sat in this big house alone. Just like I did all those years ago.

 

~~*~~

 

Eight years passed.

 

~~*~~

 

I hadn’t seen it in decades. I’d forgotten entirely about it. I’d kept it on the hearth in a small jeweled case I believe once belonged to Mom, and which Brynn kept her most treasured knickknacks. I opened the lockbox one day on a lark, something different to do, and there it was, yellow with age. I dug it up and read it again.

 

 _Half-and-half_  
It’s not such a laugh  
A moment in the sun  
Lost kisses won  
She’s waiting for you  
And to her you must be true  
While always forgetting ...  
that I love you

 

   At first I didn’t recognize it. And then the memories returned: my initials on the boulder. The boulder cracked open when I touched it and issued red light into my chest. I fainted. When I woke, I found this note under the leaves where I had lain.

 

   As I stood there, gazing at this lovely bit of verse, the words floated off the page and melted into green smoke that surrounded my face. I inhaled, and the smoke went into my lungs.

 

   And just like that, the true memories of my time with Zelena returned, slowly at first, then with more and more force. I leaned against the hearth, clutching my heart, overwhelmed.

 

   She had enchanted that path and had taken my Cruxx to the outskirts of Echeld, where she had protected it and hidden it inside an enchanted boulder. She knew I would visit Brynn again. It’s entirely possible that she had seen to it that the forgetting potion compelled me to go.

 

   Memories!

 

   My sweet Zelena!

 

   _The troll attack. She rescued me. She nursed me back to health. I fell in love with her. Desperately in love. And she had fallen in love with me._

_We exchanged hearts. I rescued her pendant and destroyed the troll encampment._

_We made love. I gave her half my heart, and she gave half of hers to me._

_I drank the forgetting potion_.

 

   I had to sit down. I was certain I was going to have a heart attack.

 

   Brynn’s perfume ... was _Zelena’s_. She must have somehow given it to Brynn! In all the time my sweet bride and I were together, I never smelled its like on anyone else!

 

   How had Zelena known of Brynn? I never told her! But then, while healing, I had gibbered! Zelena told me I had! Was that how she learned of her?

 

   I don’t know how long I sat there staring at nothing at all and sipping air like I’d never get to again, but it must have been hours, because when I came to myself, it was the middle of the night. Twelve hours had passed just like that.

 

   Without Zelena’s heart, I never could have ruled Oz. I never could have done a thousand things without that darkness. That _necessary_ darkness.

 

   I wandered what she did with my light. With my Soul Gift. Did she use them to make for herself an amazing life? Was she even alive? I prayed she was, and that her life had been beautiful and epic, that my Gift had helped her. I prayed that prayer and didn’t stop through the night. I wasn’t tired; I had no desire to sleep.

 

   I somehow knew that the forgetting potion lost its force with her the exact moment it did with me. Wherever she was— _please let her be alive!_ —she too was remembering everything. I didn’t know how I knew that; I just did. Zelena, _if she lived_ , was remembering our time together too.

 

   I studied my wand. Before I went back to her with her pendant, I had gone to the forest where she had been searching for a very special wood for wands, had found that wood, and had fashioned this very instrument. I came back to this house and there, with the whole of Zelena’s awesome magical skills and power focused intensely by the pendant, had worked furiously to prepare it for the future. I knew she had to leave me.

 

   This wand had the answer should she ever return. I had put that answer in it and locked it magically away, only to be unlocked when it came time to remember our incredible time together. I called upon it, and the answer came immediately to me. When it did I sat in my lonely house and wept for fear and joy.

 

   _Was she still alive?_

 

~~*~~

 

Morning dawned. I was sitting on the porch. From the forest a lone figure emerged from the shadows. Fifty feet away she pulled her cloak off her head and smiled, tears bright in her eyes.

 

   The dying embers of a god’s campfire that was her hair was now colored with plentiful gray the same color as ash. But the sapphire in her eyes hadn’t dimmed even a little. And though she walked slightly stooped from advanced age, she still strode towards me like she owned the whole of Oz. It was a stride that couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else’s.

 

  “Hello, Nathan.”

 

   I stood and went to her. I cupped her face. We kissed. We hugged. We cried.

 

   The perfume she wore was new. It lodged itself in my heart—the heart that was once half hers, half mine, now a married, integrated mix of both—and into my spinal fluid. It would remain with me for all time. I took a deep, deep breath and prayed that when it came time for me to die, that I would do so in her embrace.

 

   When I could see again, when the tears had dried a little, I gazed down at her pendant. It was white and empty of magic.

 

   She had no magic either. I knew then what the light in my heart, and my Soul Gift, did for her. She had given up her magic so that she could find her happy ending. So that she could, whether or not she knew it at the time, return to me.

 

   My wand was ready. I held it up between us.

 

   “Ready?”

 

   She grasped my hand and nodded with happy expectation.

 

~~*~~

 

A new day. A new life. And a magic bean, one of two Zelena had used to return to Oz.

 

   I gazed at the home I’d spent my entire life in. I’d like to return to it someday. But not for a while, I think.

 

   The kids would understand. They’d find the note I left them. This lovely home was theirs now to use as they saw fit.

 

   Zelena, unstooped now by age, her pendant green and potent once more, kissed my cheek. Her hair blazed red in the sun. I exulted once more in the feel of those wondrous lips against my flesh and gazed down upon myself. Having a twenty-year-old body once more was phenomenal, truly something to envy.

 

   No. Something to **N.V.**

 

   With her arm in mine, I threw the bean and watched as a portal opened next to my lifelong home.

 

   We walked through it, and it closed behind us.

 

~~*~~

 **Thank you for reading!**  
**Please visit my blog,**  
**ShawnMicheldeMontaigne.blogspot.com,**  
**for more fan fiction, excerpts of original works, poetry,**  
**rants, and fractal art!**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please drop by my blog: https://shawnmicheldemontaigne.blogspot.com/ for more information about me, as well as fractal art, excerpts of original works, and lots of other goodies!


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